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ON EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 



THE 



DUTY AND THE DISCIPLINE 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING 



Xt^ BY 

f/barham zincke, 

VICAR OF WHERSTEAD, AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN". 



THK FIEST AMERICAN FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SORIBNER & CO- 

1867. 

£3 

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHOR. 



^T^< 




Jas. B. Rodgers, 

Electrottper and Peinteb, 

Philadelpdia. 



Pkess of 
The New York Printing Co. 



NOTE TO THE AMERICAN READER. 



In publishing in the United States a second Edition 
of the present work, I ask permission for a few words 
of explanation. It is evident that the following pages 
were written for English readers; and especiallj for 
the members of the Church of England. I have not 
thought it advisable in bringing the work out in America, 
to make any alterations in this respect. I am not suf- 
ficiently acquainted with the methods and style of 
Preaching in the American Churches to enable me to 
make any attempt to address myself directly to those 
who minister in those Churches. I have only heard 
from competent judges that their general style of 
preaching is in advance of ours ; and that this in a 
great measure arises from their having paid more at- 
tention to Extemporary Preaching than we have. 
Here therefore we have probably rather to learn of 
them than they of us. 

My leaving, however, everything in this Edition 
1* V 



VI TO THE AMERICAN READER. 

just as it is addressed to English Churchmen, will 
have for our American brethren the advantage of ena- 
bling them to understand to some extent which is the 
existing state of things, and of practice, and what are 
some of the ideas now at work in the Church of the 
Old Country. 

I have always lived in the hope of some day being 
able to visit the Great Kepublic, that I might see, and 
judge for myself of the various aspects of Society in 
what is the last, and bids fair to be the greatest work 
of Time. Nor have I entirely laid aside the hope of 
being yet able to accomplish this long cherished wish. 
The more the two people see of each other, the better, 
I believe, it will be for each. May God speed equally 
on both sides of the Atlantic every effort to improve in 
any way Man's Estate. 

The events of last summer added a fourth to the 
great, progressive, growing, imperial powers of the 
world. Of these four three are now Teutonic. In 
the face of these four great Powers the stationary and 
even retrograde Latin race ceases to be of any real 
weight in the affairs of the world. Their role is played 
out. The destinies of mankind have passed into other 
hands. And if it be in the Future that the sceptre 
of the world shall be held by the Western Continent, 
and that it shall become the centre of mental activity, 
and the home of moral and social progress, then the 



TO THE AMERICAN READER. vil 

Parent, his own day not having been ill-spent, may 
"well rejoice to see his vigorous Child advancing still 
farther along the old familiar path; and as has ever 
been the custom of the race, teaching the nations how 
to live. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



On looking over my completed work I feel that it 
argument and recommendations are so presented as 
almost to assume the character of a chapter of Mental 
Autobiography. This has been done to a far greater 
extent than was contemplated in the forecast of the 
book. I find in fact that I have given but little heed 
to the proverbial caution, if I may be allowed a ref- 
erence to it here, against admitting spectators behind 
the scenes; and which ought to be observed most 
carefully when the indiscretion to be guarded against 
is that of revealing what passes behind the scenes of a 
man's own mind. But I shall not regret having neg- 
lected it, if by so doing I shall have been enabled to 
impart to the treatment of my subject some of that 
kind of interest, which it could not have possessed, 
had it been dealt with in an abstract and impersonal 
form. Perhaps, also, it will be better that what I 
submit to the consideration of my brethren in the 
Sacred Ministry, should not be set forth didactically, 
but as the experience of a brother Minister of the 
Word. At all events, whatever may be the estimate 
viii 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IX 

put on mj specific recommendations, most people will, 
I suppose, agree witli me in thinking that it would be 
of advantage to the Church that some effort be made, 
and that is mj aim, to improve the delivery of the 
spoken Word. 

I take this opportunity to say that in the Notes 
and Studies of Sermons, which form the latter part 
of the volume, I had but one object in view — that of 
illustrating in some particulars my previous remarks 
on Preaching. In selecting the Sermons that seemed 
suitable for this purpose from those I preached during 
the time I was engaged in writing the first part of the 
book, I passed by all that were of a purely doctrinal 
character, because I shrank from dissecting, and from 
regarding, in a rhetorical light, the treatment of the 
most sacred of all subjects. 

Many are asking how the efficiency of the Church 
may be so increased as to enable her to meet the 
peculiar and pressing difficulties of the times. No 
one would think of limiting the reply to any single 
measure, or recommendation. The following pages 
endeavor to direct attention to what I would beg per- 
mission to call a more instructed, and if so, then a 
more fruitful use of the oldest and most necessary of 
all the means that have been committed to the Church 
for enabling her to propagate the Faith. 

Wlierstead Vicarage, 
Oct. 1, 1866. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



Several readers of the first edition of this work have 
asked what proportion of the Clergy I suppose capa- 
ble of becoming Extemporary Preachers ? This may 
mean, either what proportion of the existing body of 
the Clergy, many of whom, of course, are now inca- 
pacitated in one way or another for making the at- 
tempt ; or it may mean what proportion of another 
generation who may be supposed to enter Holy Orders 
with the knowledge that they must, if possible, preach 
in this manner, and, therefore, who will all make the 
attempt to satisfy public opinion on the point. I have 
heard this question answered by another. Every 
Barrister acquires the power of speaking in public, 
and as the education of the two Professions is the 
same, why should not every clergyman ? This is not 
a complete reply, because in respect of the point in 
question the two cases are not precisely similar, l^o 
one becomes a Barrister who supposes that he has any 
disqualification for speaking in public; while many 
who believe, with or without reason, that they labor 
under disqua^lifications of this kind enter Holy Orders. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XI 

Besides tlie subjects the Clergyman has to handle are 
much more difficult to speak upon than the matters of 
fact on which the Barrister founds his addresses. And 
the style, too, of speaking required of the Clergyman, 
demands more accuracy of expression, more smooth- 
ness, and more jfinish. Against this, however, we may 
set, for what it is worth, the consideration that the 
pulpit the Clergyman must enter every Sunday sup- 
plies to him, from the beginning of his career, more 
constant opportunities for practice than the bar does 
to young Barristers. And in large parishes, there 
are many occasions, and in pJl some, besides the regular 
Sunday Sermons, upon which addresses of one kind or 
another are now required from a Clergyman. 

But I would ask any one of my reverend brethren, 
who may be disposed to take a lower estimate than I 
do of the capacity in this respect of the Clergy, to call 
over mentally the muster-roll of the Incumbents of the 
Deanery to which he belongs, considering, as he goes 
along, what kind of a Preacher each would probably 
have become had he through several years (and in this 
matter little can be done in a year or two) set himself 
resolutely to the task of acquiring the mastery of his 
general subject, and of the particular subject of each 
discourse, together v/ith a proper understanding of 
the best way of presenting what he has to say to the 
minds of the congregation. Whoever will make this 
survey of his neighbors, will, I think, come to the 



Xll PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

conclusion that in the case of almost every individual, 
something far better than his present power of de- 
livering the Word would have been attained. In 
some, of course, this point would be very far in ad- 
vance of what it would be in others ; and some would 
require a much shorter time to reach it than others ; 
but, in every case, the gains would presumably be very 
great. Ko one would doubt that it would be so in 
writing. But as speaking is the most natural method 
of communicating thought and feeling, while writing 
is, if not an artificial method, at all events a less na- 
tural one, I believe that every one who has become, 
or who would have become, a moderately good writer, 
which is the alternative supposed, would with the 
same amount of pains, I cannot but think a less 
amount, have becom.e a moderately good speaker. 
We must suppose a considerable amount of pains 
taken, because a Clergyman, with a view to properly 
qualifying himself for his sacred office of delivering 
the Word of God, cannot give himself less trouble 
than artists, barristers, literary men, or those who be- 
long to any secular occupation do, to perfect them- 
selves in the work of their professions or trades. If 
then this were begun early and resolutely persevered 
in, I believe the cases would be very few in which the 
Clergyman would fail in the power of grasping his 
subject with sufficient firmness, and of expressing with 
sufficient correctness and readiness what he had firmly 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Xlll 

grasped, for a discourse of half an hour. There is no 
question in these pages except of Clergymen who en- 
deavor conscientiously to do their duty; it is, there- 
fore, conceded that the writer of Sermons goes on year 
after year taking pains with the composition of his 
sermons, and doing this part of his work to the best 
of his ability. Imagine then, that instead of these 
pains having been bestowed on writing only, he had 
labored with equal honesty and perseverance at the 
other method of preparation and delivery; and what- 
ever success would have attended him as a writer, 
would also, I presume, and generally to a higher de- 
gree, have attended him as a speaker. 

I remember having been told by the present Bishop 
of British Columbia, (he was then incumbent of Great 
Yarmouth) that he had up to that time engaged 
twenty-seven curates — he kept what might be called a 
corps of six — and that in engaging each, he had stipu- 
lated for a certain amount of Extemporary Preaching. 
The rule was that the new comer was to commence 
with school-room expositions, and week-day lectures; 
and that after some months of this preliminary work 
he must preach without book once on the Sunday. 
Dr. Hills had found that in every case of this large 
number of curates, no matter what the man's antece- 
dents, or disposition, or habits ; no matter how timid, 
or studious, or unstudious, he might have been, the 



XIV PREPACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

desired result had been attained. The man became 
capable of speaking in public. In this matter, I would 
not, however, apply the iron rule the incumbent of 
Great Yarmouth did, and with such complete success. 
Perhaps it would be better that public opinion should 
' require of every Minister of the Word (a point towards 
which I think we are moving) that he should endeavor 
to the best of his ability, to attain to the most effective 
method of addressing a congregation on the things that 
belong unto their salvation. If, under such a state of 
things, one out of three should fail to attain his direct 
object, still he will have received no injury, either 
morally or intellectually, from having made the at- 
tempt; and the Church will be a very great gainer 
from the success of the other two. 

One word more. We are obliged to presume that 
every youth who is admitted to Holy Orders, is already 
qualified for preaching the Word. At all events, it is 
our practice to exact it indiscriminately from all from 
the day of their ordination. This may be, and probably 
is, under the circumstances of the case, a necessity. 
It may also be really the wisest thing to do — to set the 
young Minister to work to learn this part of his duty 
in the best way for learning any thing, that is by 
doing it. A main part of the aim of the following 
pages is to convince the understanding and the con- 
science of those about to seek, or who have lately 



PREFACE TO TUE SECOND EDITION. XV 

been admitted to Holy Orders, that, however earnest 
and devoted they may be, still they have many years 
of hard intellectual work in prospect, before they can 
hope to become thoroughly furnished and able Min- 
isters of the Word. 



CONTENTS. 



Note to the American reader v 

Preface to the first edition viii 

Preface to the second edition x 

CHAPTER I. 

MY OWN MOTIVES AND REASONS FOR PREACHING EX TEMPORE. 

SOME OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

SECTION. PAGE. 

1. Object and plan of the work 1 

2. Why confined to tlie writer's personal experience ... 2 

3. Difficulties of sermon-writing at the beginning of my 

clerical life. My first year 3 

4. The six following years 5 

5 — 7. Become persuaded that it would be better to preach 

ex tempore, than to read written sermons .... 6 

8. Reasons that weighed with me. Sermons often spoken 

disparagingly of. Not so with other kinds of public 
speaking 9 

9. Fondness for hearing public speaking a characteristic of 

European civilization 10 

10. Why so 11 

11. The advantages the preacher possesses for public 

speaking 12 

12. Good preachers would be of much service to the Church 13 
13 — 16. Shown by the history of the Church ib. 

17. The Minister of the Word cannot be, what he ought to be, 

a Teacher, unless he be able to speak in public . . IG 

18. This his speciality; for good moral character is required 

of the laity as well as of the clergy 18 

19. Its utility to the clergy at vestry and other parochial and 

public meetings 21 

20. Useful also as it enables them to give lectures .... 22 

2* xvii 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

SECTION. PAGE. 

21. Of more use to our Clergy than to the Priest of the Church 

of Eorae or Dissenting Ministers 23 

22. We should acquire this power out of consideration for 

the Avishes of our parishioners 25 

23. Not an answer, that the Church does not formally require 

this of the Clergy 27 

24 — 26. Why we must consider the wants and wishes of the 

lower classes 29 

27. How the question — Which is best, to read written ser- 

mons, or to preach ex tempore ? ought to be put . . 33 

28. Extemporary Preaching secures continuous study and 

improvement 35 

29. As it presupposes writing, it will also secure accuracy . 88 

30. This is the natural and most impressive method of delivery 39 

31. Answer to the objection, that it is an offei-ing which 

costs nothing 41 

32. And that it takes too much time. It is not learning a 

sermon by rote, but mastering the subject .... 43 

33. It is a security against verbal repetitions 44 

34. It is too earnest and direct for some hearers .... 45 

35. False inferences in favor of reading, from false analogies 46 

36. The truePreacher very different from the popular Preacher 46 

CHAPTEE II. 

MY OWN METHOD OP ACQUIRING THE POWER OF PREACHING 
EX TEMPORE. 

1. The method I adopted. How sermons for Extemporary 

Preaching should be studied and composed ... 49 

2. Necessity of previous study and composition .... 51 

3. Sermons Avritten for reading proved quite unfit for Ex- 

temporary Preaching, 54 

4. Advisable to prepare MSS. for Extemporary Preaching on 

all Scriptures upon which one would wish to preach 55 

5. Result of twelve years' experience. The Extemporary 

Preacher will never preach the same sermon twice . 56 

6. The cMef difficulty is to make the first eff"ort .... 58 

7. What*feelings harder to bear than the distress of having 

to speak ex tempore 60 



CONTENTS. XIX 

SECTION. PAGE. 

8. In some cases Exposition may be used as training for Ex- 

temporary Preaching 60 

9. Reflections and hints on the actual practice of Extemporary 

Preaching suggested. The years 1854, 1855, 185G . 64 

10. The year 1857 66 

11. The same year continued 71 

12. The year 1858 , , 73 

13. The year 1859 76 

CHAPTEE III. 

SOME REMARKS ON THE COMPOSITION OP SERMONS. 

1. Composition of sermons — their effectiveness depends 

upon it 78 

2 — 3. They must, first of all, be vertebrate compositions . ib 
4 To be regarded as works of art of a high order . . .79 

5. Must have unity of purpose 80 

6, What better in sermons than natural eloquence ... . 82 
7 — 10, Respective claims of ordinary phraseology and that 

of our English Bible 83 

11. Openings of sermons will generally be composed last . . 87 

12, Further remarks on the opening sentence 88 

13 — 15. Concluding sentence difficult, and of different kinds ib 

16, What to be avoided in conclusions 90 

17. Uniformity of plan to be avoided. How. Announcement 

of divisions to be avoided 92 

18, Repetition of ideas to be avoided 93 

19. Exhortation necessary — in what it consists 94 

20. Light and shade necessary 96 

21, 22. Correct emphasis. Natural in speaking, diflacult in 

reading ib 

CHAPTER IV. 

SOME REMARKS ON THE AIMS AND SURJEOTS OF SERMONS. 

1. Subjects and aims of Modern Preaching. Several epochs 

in the history of the Church. Each has its own dis- 
tinctive character 102 

2. The character of the age must be attended to. The safe- 

guard provided against carrying this to an extreme. 102 



XX CONTENTS. 

SECTION. PAGE. 

3. How Christ is all in all in the Word. He must be so to 

the Preacher 105 

4. It would be mischievous, if it were possible, to revive a 

bygone epoch 106 

5. Sermons must not be regarded as Confessions of Faith . 109 

6. Nor, on the other hand, as mere Bridgewater Treatises, 

or moral essays Ill 

7. How the preacher must regard the increased scientific 

knowledge and the historical and Biblical criticism 

of the present day Ill 

8. He must consider the change in the relation of the intel- 

ligence of the congregation to that of the preacher . 113 

9. Also the enlargement of the means of instruction . . .114 

10. These" changes suggest the justice of some of the common 

complaints against sermons 114 

11. Aims of ditFerent kinds of preachers. Those who aim at 

strictly theological instruction. Those who take 
wider views 115 

12. Those who aim at awakening religious emotion . . .116 

13. Those Avho regard sermons as a department of the Belles 

Lettres 117 

14. Those who disparage sermons 118 

15. Those who regard sermons as a part of the service. 

Those who regard them as a part of their duty • .119 

CHAPTER V. 

SOME REMARKS ON THE PLACE ASSIGNED TO PREACHING IN THE 
WORD OF GOD, AND IN OUR SERVICE. 

1. The place assigned to preaching in the Word. First in 

the Old Dispensation 120 

2. Then in the New . 122 

3. Preacher, how far synonymous with prophet .... 123 

4. The want of preachers still, and always will be, great . 124 

5. Answer to the disparaging remark, that people do not go 

to Church to hear sermons, but to pray 127 

6. And that hearing sermons is inferior to praying . . . 128 

7. A cause for these objections 

The fault of giving sermons too prominent a place in the 

service . 130 



CONTENTS. XXI 

SECTION. PAGE. 

8. Proper length of sermons. Bad effects of making them 

too long 131 

9. Modern failure in making the Church attractive . . .133 

10. The fault not in human nature, which, as all history 

shows, has a strong instinct for united worship . . 133 

11. Nor in Christianity 136 

12. Those who are repelled, say it is because what is pre- 

sented to them is not so much a religion as a form . 137 

13. This intelligible, and not unreasonable or irreligious . .138 

14. Christianity, as presented by Jesus Christ and the Apostle 

to the Gentiles, had power to convert the world . . 139 

15. The satisfying plenteousness of God's house, as appre- 

hended by the Psalmist 140 

16. The excellence of our form of public worship, as compared 

with those services which make too much of preaching 141 

17. And with those which disparage it 142 

18. How the different factors of a religious service are bal- 

anced in our Liturgy . 143 

19. The effect of this admirable service may be weakened 

through faults in those who conduct it 144 

20. The high and responsible duty of the Minister of the 

Word in this matter 144 



NOTES FOE SIX SERMOK"S. 

WITH OBSERVATIONS UPON EACH. 

The object of giving these sermons, and of the observations that 
accompany them, is to illustrate what has been said in the pre- 
vious part of the work upon the composition of sermons, and 
upon the way in which the modern preacher should treat his 
subject. 

SERMOISr I. 

Isaiah xxviii. 10. — Here a little, and there a little . . . .151 
Observations on the foregoing Sermon • 162 



XXll CONTENTS. 



SERMON 11. 

2 Corinthians xi. 23— 27.— What we are to seek in life . . 168 
Observations on the foregoing Sermon 179 

SERMON III. 

Luke xi. 24 — 26. — The return of the unclean spirit 185 

Observations on the foregoing Sermon 194 

SERMON IV. 

Acts X. 1, 2. — The Centurion of Ceesarea 196 

Observations on the foregoing Sermon 211 

SERMON V. 

Matthew viii. 10, 13 — The Centurion of Capernaum . . . 215 
Observations on the foregoing Sermon 224 

SERMON YI. 

Luke iii. 10 — 14. — The sense of sin and the sense of duty 

lead to Faith 227 

Observations on the foregoing Sermon 241 



SIX SHORT STUDIES FOR SERMONS. 

STUDY I. 

Deuteronomy vii. 6, 7. — God has important work for the least 

among us 245 



STUDY II. 

Deuteronomy xii. 8. — Some limitations to self-will .... 248 



CONTENTS. XXm 

STUDY III. 

Psalm cvi. 14, 15. — We tempt God by our desires .... 250 

STUDY IV. 

John xviii. 38.— What is truth ? 253 

STUDY V. 

James ii. 10. — The offender in one point 258 

STUDY YL 

1 John iv. 8. — God is revealed to us by our hearts .... 260 



OB" EXTEMPORARY PREACHmG. 



I DO not propose to write in the follow- ^- O^^ject 

and plan of 

ing pages a treatise upon Preacliing, for the work. 
many treatises have already been written on this 
subject, without, I believe, proving of the use their 
writers contemplated. A failure of this kind might 
have been anticipated, from the fact that the writer 
of a treatise endeavors to take a complete view of his 
subject, and therefore devotes a large part of his 
work to what has little or no connection with the cir- 
cumstances of the times and the wants of his readers. 
Both my object and my method of procedure will be 
different from those of the writer of a treatise. I 
shall limit myself to the aim of submitting to those 
among my clerical brethren who read their sermons, 
first some considerations in favor of Extemporary 
Preaching, and then a method by which in many in- 
stances the power of Extemporary Preaching may be 
attained even by those who may not make the at- 



A EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

tempt to acquire it till middle life has been reached. 
In doing this I shall have to offer some suggestions 
on the composition and aims of sermons, and to touch 
upon some other matters connected with mj subject. 
2. Why In carrying; out my plan I shall only 

confined to ./ o v' r j 

the writer's speak of those questions which I found my- 

personal 

experience, sclf Called upon to solve, and of those diffi- 
culties with which I was myself confronted, in my ef- 
forts to carry out what I am about to recommend to 
others. Every body must feel repugnance to speak 
about himself, particularly on such a subject ; and I 
trust that my readers, before we part company, will 
have come to understand why I am setting myself to 
do what I should have as much disinclination for as 
any of themselves, had I not what I consider a suffi- 
cient motive. I know that in what I shall have to 
say about myself there is nothing of any interest or 
importance to make it worth repeating for its own 
sake; and if I had not in view an object which I 
think it very desirable to promote, and which 1 thmk 
may be promoted in this way, I should not have a 
word to say about any thing I thought or attempted. 
People who are entering on any course will generally 
find something serviceable in the experience of those 
who have gone before; and what the events and 
thoughts of the day have brought one clergyman to 
feel, others may now be feeling more or less dis- 
tinctly; and some, perhaps, may find that the course 



EXTEMPORAEY PREACHING. 3 

the writer of these pages adopted for carrying out his 
convictions may be pursued successfully by them- 
selves. At all events, I trust that my way of treat- 
ing the subject will save the reader from some useless 
discussions and unnecessary considerations. 

I was ordained in the year 1840 to the 3- Difficul- 
ties of ser- 
curacy of Andover, in Hampshire, a town mon writing 

containing a population of between four ning of my 

1 n ,x, 1 ,.,. p clei'ical life. 

and nve tnousand souls, inclusive oi two or jyj ^^.g^^ 
three outlying hamlets, in one of which y^^'^- 
was a chapel of ease to the church in the town. But 
I confine myself to the subject of Preaching. Two 
sermons were required of me each Sunday. I began 
this part of my work, as I suppose was generally the 
case at that time, perfectly unprepared. I had not a 
single written sermon; nor had I ever attempted to 
write one, or in any way given the subject of sermon- 
writing a thought. I had supposed that, as I had 
some fondness for literary pursuits, I should find no 
difficulty in doing this part of my work. So I had 
thought. In the first week, however, I discovered 
that I was greatly mistaken. An historical or criti- 
cal essay, of such calibre as might be expected from 
one of my years, or a copy of Latin verses, would 
have been an easier task for me than writing a ser- 
mon proved to be. At the time, I thought this was 
to be attributed to want of familiarity with my sub- 
ject, and with the style of composition it required. 



4 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

The experience, however, of twentj-five years has 
shown me that I was only partially right in this sup- 
position. I now know that sermon-writing requires a 
greater variety of qualifications than perhaps any 
other kind of composition, and is therefore propor- 
tionately difficult. A sermon, just like all other 
literary work that is presented to the attention of the 
public, demands a certain amount of literary skill. 
This should never be wanting; and educated people 
have a right to complain when they find a clergyman 
undertaking the office of a public teacher and 
preacher without this indispensable requisite. But 
besides this it is necessary that he should possess a 
considerable amount of logical acumen, because every 
sermon may be regarded as the preacher's exposition 
of a portion of what has come to be a very compli- 
cated system of theology — of a system, at all events, 
which is controverted at every point. Another re- 
quirement is some acquaintance with what is under- 
stood by the term human nature, because the preacher 
has to deal with man's feelings and instincts, and 
with the secret springs of conduct, both with what is 
degrading and defiling, and with his purest and 
highest aspirations. A certain amount also of elo- 
quence, or at least of the power of so speaking as to 
secure the attention, is requisite; for a sermon is an 
address to a present audience for the very purpose of 
moving and persuading them. I may also add, that 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHIXG. 5 

if the preacher be unacquainted with the many very 
important questions arising out of the recent enlarge- 
ments of our historical, critical, philological, and 
scientific knowledge, questions which are ever being 
discussed in society, he will adopt a tone in his 
preaching which will necessarily fail to conciliate the 
attention of the most thoughtful and best informed 
of his congregation. When I commenced sermon- 
writing, I was but scantily provided with any of 
these qualifications, and wholly unprovided with some 
of them ; and, as I had to produce two sermons each 
week, it will not surprise any one that I found the 
task a very difiicult one, and one which I was only 
able to perform in a very unsatisfactory manner. 
I remained at Andover a year, and 4. The six 

following 

then removed to the joint curacies of tvfo years. 
small contiguous parishes in the neighborhood of Ips- 
wich. In the year I was at Andover I managed by 
very hard work, to write nearly one hundred sermons; 
but I was so ashamed of them, that on going to my new 
curacy I destroyed them, thinking that after a year's 
practice I must be able to write something less un- 
worthy of my subject. I remained in this double 
curacy for six years, having on each Sunday to per- 
form one service in each parish. As the two villages 
were very close to each other, a part of my morning 
and afternoon congregations was composed of the 
same persons. During the time I remained in these 

1* 



6 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

curacies I wrote three hundred sermons. I then be- 
came Incumbent of one of these two parishes, that of 
Wherstead. 
5. Become I ]iad now been seven years in Holy 

persuaded 

that it would Orders; all that time I had labored 

be better to . . 

preacli ex- nonestly at sermon -writing, and had 

tcTSad'wVi^ thought much on the subject; but my 
ten sermons, thought, labor, and experience, had only 
brought me to the conclusion, that to hear written 
sermons read was unprofitable to the congregation, 
and that to read such sermons was very unsatisfactory 
to the Minister. In short, I had come to regard 
reading written sermons as labor almost entirely 
thrown away. Sunday after Sunday the same 
thoughts and feelings recurred to me. As I pre- 
pared for the service, while I was in the pulpit, and 
as, when the service was over, I returned from the 
church, there would come into my mind the thought, 
What wretched work these sermons are ! I was sure 
the congregation took but little interest in them; and 
so that the benefit derived from them could only be 
indirect, and very small. I thought that they might 
perhaps keep up and possibly sometimes add a little 
to the knowledge of the hearer; but that this, if 
done, might be said to be done against his will, 
for I saw clearly enough that no one was intent on 
what was read. My thoughts and reflections on this 
subject invariably brought me to the same conclusion. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. i 

tliat there was but one remedy for this unsatisfactory 
way of going on, and that was to preach to the 
people, and not to read to them. 

I became so convinced of the unprofitableness ^• 
of reading written sermons, that I ceased to write any 
more, and for the six following years the time I had 
hitherto given to sermon-writing I spent otherwise. 
This of course only made the sermons I con- 
tinued to read still more unprofitable to the congre- 
gation, and still more irksome to myself, for we 
cannot take any interest in what we think slightingly 
of. My convictions, however, as to the remedy were 
growing into a practical form, or rather my con- 
victions as to the certainty of the remedy were 
forcing me to devise some method for applying it. I 
put it in this way because I was well aware that I did 
not possess any of that readiness either of thought or 
of language which are necessary for extemporary 
speaking, and that my somewhat studious life had 
aggravated my natural deficiencies in these respects. 
I was what is called a nervous man; and having now 
reached my thirty-eighth year without ever having 
addressed to any audience half-a-dozen words except 
what was down in writing before me, the difficulties 
of carrying out what I saw to be right had appeared 
to me quite insuperable. Still I had gone on arguing 
with myself — " It is the right thing to do, and there- 
fore it ought to be attempted at all hazards and in- 



8 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

conveniences. JSTo matter how disagreeable it may be, 
no matter what the amount of labor it may entail 
upon me, as it is the right thing to do, I must do it." 
I recall these difficulties that lay in my own path that 
any one of my brethren who may be supposing that 
insuperable difficulties are lying in his path, may be 
encouraged to think, that if he will honestly and per- 
severingly endeavor to overcome them, he will in the 
end succeed. I believe that very few will have 
greater difficulties to contend with than the writer of 
these pages had. If I had any advantage at all, it 
was that the practice I had had in writing would, to 
a great extent, save me from glaring inaccuracies of 
expression, and to some extent also from bad logic. 
But these are advantages which are not to be gained 
exclusively by the practice of writing; many who 
have written much, express themselves badly and are 
bad reasoners; and many who have never written 
any thing, express themselves correctly and reason 
well. 

7. At the beginning, then, of the year 1854, after 
fourteen years' experience of the failure of the 
method of reading written discourses, I resolved that, 
cost what it might, I would give the remedy a fair 
trial, and that the trial should be this, — that for the 
next ten years I would not read a sermon; and that 
I would not do this in a partial manner from which 
little could be inferred, but that I would do it com- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 9 

pletely and thoroughly, for that during that time I 
would never once refer to any abstract or notes of 
any kind. I determined to read my text from the 
Bible itself (immediately afterwards closing the book, 
that I might not be tempted to make use of memo- 
randa), and then to preach to the congregation from 
what I had upon the subject in the stores of my own 
mind. This would be giving the proposed remedy a 
real and effectual trial. It is now twelve years since 
I entered on this course. I have never in my own 
church deviated from it for a single service. The 
labor involved in carrying it out has been very con- 
siderable. It was so, particularly at first. But I 
never repented, nor do I now repent, of having made 
the attempt; and my congregation, I trust, are not 
dissatisfied with the result. 

I will presently state the method I ^- Reasons 

^ "^ ^ that weigh- 

adopted for carrying out my resolution; ed with me. 

1 X -n o f 1 Sermons 

but i Will first revert to some oi the con- often spoken 
siderations which, while I was being lyo^^^ifoTfo 
brought to that resolution, were ever re- ^^^^jg^jf ^^^_ 
curring to my mind, and which indeed I ^^^ speaking, 
may say brought me to it. I recollect frequently 
saying to myself. Sermons, we hear on all sides, have 
very little effect ; that portion of our current litera- 
ture which deals with what is passing day by day 
amongst us, is ever speaking of sermons in a tone of 
disparagement, as dull and uninteresting beyond any 



10 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

thing else that we are expected to listen to; and this 
is only the echo of what we hear in society, and par- 
ticularly in that portion of society which is most cul- 
tivated and intellectual. Yet every body knows how 
fond Englishmen are of listening to public speaking. 
Our public meetings, public dinners, addresses, lec- 
tures, and other things of the kind "in numbers, 
numberless," are very much the result merely of the 
desire to obtain an opportunity for hearing some one 
who is known to be able to speak in public. Even 
though, as a speaker, he may be below mediocrity, 
still the general feeling is, that it is better to have 
even bad speaking than none at all. The mind, just 
like the body, craves for food; and no kind of mental 
food appears to give such general satisfaction as that 
which is supplied by public speaking. 

9. Fond- This is often regarded by ourselves as 

ness for ^ _ 

hearing something peculiar to Englishmen, as a 

public speak- r i? r "u r^ t? ^ 

ingacharac- phenomenon 01 iiingiish life. But no 

European svLch. thing. If we go back to the earliest 
civilization, ^ecord of European civilization, we shall 
find that the Greeks before Troy were just as fond of 
listening to speeches as the Englishman of the pre- 
sent day. They could do nothing without public 
speaking. The chiefs never failed in this matter. 
They were, upon every occasion that .admitted of it, 
ready to speak. Tacitus says the same of our Ger- 
man ancestors. So was it at the dawnings of Euro- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACIIINa. 11 

pean civilization, and so has it been througliout. 
Indeed, this is just one of the facts which distin- 
guish the European from the Asiatic mind, and the 
European from the Asiatic civilization. There is a 
longing in our minds to hear the very words, spoken 
by himself, of the man who is supposed to be able to 
guide and to teach. We wish to see his mind work- 
ing in our presence; to see his thoughts forming 
themselves before our eyes, and to hear them enun- 
ciated in the very words in which the thinker clothes 
them, vivified by the tones which no one but himself 
can impart to them. It would seem, in truth, that 
as there is nothing higher in this world than mind 
and heart, — indeed, as we are unable to form a con- 
ception of any thing higher, so there cannot be any 
thing more interesting to us than to witness this 
process. . 

Under our form of civilization, — and l^- ^"^^y so. 
its difference from and superiority to the civilization 
of other races is the result of nothing but our moral 
and intellectual difference from and superiority to 
them, — the rule has ever been, that men should con- 
struct their opinions for themselves, their opinions 
being the guides of their actions and of their lives. 
No other system has ever obtained amongst us. It 
follows from this, that the mass of mankind, who 
cannot be great readers or profound thinkers, will 
always be desirous of hearing what public speakers 



12 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

have to saj. They will entertain the hope of being 
profited and instructed ; at all events, they expect to 
derive from listening that kind of pleasure for which 
the mind has an insatiable appetite, — the pleasure 
which arises from having the faculties of memory, 
imagination, and judgment awakened and called into 
exercise in an easy and natural way, without any 
direct effort of our own. 
11. The JSTow it used to appear to me, that no 

advantages 

the preacher one could be in a better position for min- 

possesses for . . 

public istering to this generally lelt want than a 

spea mg. Clergyman. No one has so wide, so in- 
teresting, so human a range of subjects to speak 
upon. Man's nature; man's relation to the unseen 
world; his duty here, his destiny hereafter; what 
will promote, and what will mar his happiness ; what 
is the interpretation of the phenomena of human 
life — the subjects indeed are inexhaustible, for he has 
to instruct his hearers in that highest, that divine 
philosophy, which, if it be possible, embraces and 
harmonizes into an intelligible and well-compacted 
whole, every thing which man knows, and in which he 
is concerned. He has to speak to men about all that 
they feel, and want, and desire; all that they hope 
and fear; and all that they know. The man who 
speaks on political, or social, or historical, or scienti- 
fic subjects only, deals with some one part of that 
wide field, the whole of which is spread out before 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 13 

the preacher if he be properly prepared for his work; 
for whatever bears on the formation of our feelings, 
or of our opinions, or can through these or other 
means be made influential on human conduct, belongs 
to the domain of the preacher. 

How much influence, then, might the 12. Good 

preachers 

Church secure in this most legitimate of would be of 

n /-I • 111 -11 much ser- 

all ways (because it would be acquired by vice to the 
supplying the great moral wants of its 
people, that is, by doing its duty to them), if it had 
''a company of preachers" able to preach ^ intelli- 
gently and persuasively on these subjects! And I 
think that no one who is acquainted Avith the history 
of the past and the wants of the present day will 
suppose that the Church can recover the ground it 
has lost, so readily and efi'ectually in any other way as 
in this. Other methods of proceeding may go some 
way towards reaching, or may assist in reaching, but 
cannot of themselves reach, the end in view. The 
Church, whatever else it may have to do, will also 
have to supply itself with this army of preachers able 
to handle properly their wide and sacred subject. 
Consider the history of the Christian 13. Shown 

hj the his- 

Church. It was in this way that it was tory of the 
established in the world. Paul and his 
fellow-Apostles came and spoke to men on those sub- 

' Here, and throughout these pages I use the term "preaching," 
in contradistinction to reading written sermons. 



14 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

jects upon which men were craving for light. Those 
"were times when the old beliefs having become utterly 
discredited, and every nation of the civilized world 
having been thrown into the crucible of the Roman 
empire, to be disintegrated, melted dow^n, and recast, 
there was, in a degree and a sense unknown before in 
the world, a mental ^'distress of nations, with per- 
plexity." What Paul had to say was directly ad- 
dressed to this state of things-. It met " the present 
distress." He spoke to them of One who was capable 
of becoming to them "the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life." He spoke to them, and they listened gladly 
to the man who spoke to them on the subject on w^hich 
they were so anxiously groping for light : and the 
work so commenced was half accomplished. 
14. And so throughout the whole subsequent his- 
tory of the Church. Whenever a revival or an 
advance has been effected, it has been effected by 
preaching, by speaking, by mind addressing mind 
through the medium of spoken words, on subjects 
about which men's minds were at the time greatly 
stirred. In none of these instances could the effect 
have been produced by reading written discourses. 
Imagine the preachers of the Crusades, or the Domi- 
.nicans and Franciscans, who by their fervid preaching 
restored the then waning influence of the Papacy, 
reading written discourses. The incongruity of the 
idea is so great as to present a ludicrous image to the 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 15 

mind. Their object was to move, to sway minds, to 
persuade. Who then, but can see that for them to 
have read what they wished to say, would have been 
futile and nugatory? It would have been to have 
thrown away their labor, and to have made them- 
selves ridiculous. We cannot suppose that any thing 
else would have resulted from their adoption of the 
practice of reading. But to go on with this historical 
view of our subject. Could reading written dis- 
courses have brought about the Reformation ? Or we 
may take a lesson from the practice of our opponents. 
The teachers of heresy have always been preachers, 
and not readers. Had they been readers, the Church 
would never at any time have had cause to fear their 
eiforts. In that case their heresies could hardly have 
spread beyond their own minds. It is the eye, the 
tone, the living thought of the speaker, that moves 
and persuades the hearer. These will even give 
power to error for a time; and for a time, without 
their aid, truth itself is placed at a mighty disadvan- 
tage. 

Had AYesley and Whitefield not been preach- i^- 
ers, they would have effected nothing. I know they 
prepared their sermons beforehand in writing, just 
as Robertson in our own day did, and as so many 
other great preachers, as distinguished from mere 
talkers, did before them; and this is what I intend to 
recommend to my readers; and I trust that I shall be 



16 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

able to persuade them that it is what always ought to 
be done to a greater or less extent by the preacher of 
the Word of God. 

16. But I am understating the fact. Not only was 
the first establishment of our holy religion effected 
by the instrumentality of extemporary preaching, 
as were also its subsequent recoveries and revi- 
vals, and every stirring application of it to the cir- 
cumstances of the times; but, furthermore, we find 
all Churches and communities of Christians so well 
aware of the superiority of spoken addresses to dis- 
courses that are read, that the practice has, I believe, 
been in all times and in all places to preach and not 
to read, with the single exception of the Church of 
England. The oldest Churches retain it, and the 
ncAvest adopt it. With us alone the rule obtains, to 
read the written discourse. So singular a concord- 
ance, amounting almost to complete unanimity, under 
so great a variety of circumstances, does of itself go 
far towards demonstrating the propriety and wisdom 
of the practice. 
17. The But what I now wish to direct the at- 

Minister of 

the Word tention of my readers to, is the considera- 

cannotbe, . i • i • p 

what he tion 01 the reasons which exist lor our 

a^Teacher,^' abandoning our present method. The 

aWe tospeak Minister of the Word, as the title implies, 

in public. jg g^ Teacher — one who ministers, teaches 

the Word. But a teacher is one who is able to teach. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 17 

Sir William Hamilton makes the ability :o teach, the 
one exclusive test of the possession of knowledge. It 
is plain, that reading a discourse on any subject is 
not teaching that subject. Teaching implies, first, 
the possession of knowledge, and then the power ot 
conveying it, according to the circumstances and re- 
quirements of the moment, to other minds. A man 
who can do this, demonstrates that he knows His sub- 
ject; and he is a teacher. The man who reads, does, 
strictly speaking, only demonstrate his ability to read 
what is before him. What he reads may be his own 
digested knowledge, or it may be an undigested com- 
position, or it may be a mere copy of another man's 
work. But even in those cases where the minister 
reads what is strictly his own, he is only reading, not 
teaching. What a man reads, he wrote when he was 
alone in his study. The mere fact that, originally, it 
was written, and not spoken, implies a different 
structure of sentences, and a different sequence of 
thought. What is spoken is not always adapted for 
reading, and what is written is still more seldom 
adapted for speaking. The circumstances which give 
its character to the composition in each case, are 
widely different. In one case it is the expression of 
the thought of a solitary thinker, who is under no 
strong present impulse to consider any one but him- 
self, or any thing but what is intelligible to his own 

mind. What is said in the other case is the result of 

2* 



18 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

a highly conscious feeling that other minds are at the 
moment in contact "with your own mind. You feel 
that they are following you ; you feel their wants at 
the moment in the matter before you. The congre- 
gation do in fact, in a large degree, shape your course, 
and give its color to your expression, and its tone 
to your language. You know that they are thinking 
with you; and this affects your thought and the form 
it outwardly assumes. This is one of the necessities 
of teaching. What is written in solitude can hardly 
ever he in harmony with the thoughts of the congre- 
gation. It is the transcript of, probably, the mid- 
night thoughts of the writer. Some portions of it 
may possibly have been adapted from the Vforks of 
others, some may have been extorted from a weary or 
unwilling brain; and when it is read there is little or 
no power of adjusting it to the requirements of the 
moment. 
18. Tliis I am prepared for the remark that the 

his specia- 
lity; for Minister of the Word is something more 
good mor<al _ 
character is- than a rreaciier. 1 do not deny the as- 

the^aUy as sertion, but I deny what is implied by it. 

Y^!/^ ^^^^^ I I'eply, — Whatever else he may be, he is 

at all events, because he is a Minister of 

the Word, a Preacher ; and when he enters the pulpit, 

it is then his exclusive and his high duty to minister 

the Word, to teach, to preach. To read, although 

what he reads may be his own composition, is but an 



EXTEMPORAKY PREACHING. 19 

inadequate and sorry way of performing this high 
duty. He will be wronging himself and his parish- 
ioners if he supposes that good moral character will 
be suflScient for securing their respect and regard ; for 
of him is required furthermore that he should be able 
to do what he has professed most solemnly to devote 
his life to doing, that is, that he should be able to 
teach. And till he has demonstrated beyond all 
cavil and question his possession of this power, by the 
constant exercise of it in the pulpit in the face of the 
congregation (the only way in which he can demon- 
strate it), they can have no certainty on the subject. 
Good moral character, we must remember, is required of 
a layman, as well as of a Clergyman. The distinctive 
duty of the latter is teaching, ministering the Word 
in the most effective way he can to the flock com- 
mitted to his charge. This duty occupies a primary 
place in the code of clerical morality, just in the sense 
in which courage does in the case of one who has un- 
dertaken the profession of arms. And that a Clergy- 
man should never have given himself the trouble to 
acquire the power of speaking and teaching, so in- 
dispensable for the proper discharge of his sacred 
office, must affect the estimate which men form of his 
character. I ask my clerical brethren to regard this 
matter from the layman's point of view, and then 
decide what can fairly be required of them. In them 
this neglect is a moral delinquency. The congrega- 



20 EXTE3IP0KARY PREACHING. 

tion of the Minister of the Word who reads written 
sermons will perhaps treat him as if they had nothing 
to complain of. But congregations have hitherto 
shown themselves very good-natured and patient in 
respect of sermons, I do not think so much from in- 
difference, as from a feeling of utter powerlessness to 
do any thing to amend what is amiss in the matter. 
But they may not always he so acquiescent. In their 
hearts they know that they have a right to complain; 
and already allow the mouth to proclaim what the 
heart tells them. Any Clergyman can judge from his 
own observation how much more respect is felt by his 
parishioners for one who, Sunday after Sunday, 
teaches the Word from the fulness of his own mind, 
than for one who reads to them, it is impossible for 
them to know, whose thoughts. It is in human nature 
to respect those who stand up before us with un- 
doubted abihty to teach us. There is no escaping 
from this feeling. If we cannot say of all men that 
they have more or less of an instinctive desire for 
knowledge and improvement, at all events, we cannot 
err in taking as much for granted of the members of a 
Christian congregation, because it is one of the motives 
which have brought them together to hear the Word. 
But whether this be so or not, it is impossible to refrain 
from respecting one who is manifestly our intellectual 
superior. Why, we even feel a kind of respect for one 
who is superior to us merely in physical qualities. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 21 

And it is not in the pulpit only that 19. its 

^ ^ "^ utility to the 

this power is indispensable for the proper Clergy at 
discharge of the duties "which devolve on other 
a Clergyman. Without it, far instance, and^pubiic 
in how helpless a position will he fre- J^eetmgs. 
quently find himself Avhen occupying the chair at 
vestry and other parochial meetings. He will, on 
these occasions, be distressed and disturbed by the un- 
comfortable feelings that will arise from his knowing 
both that he is appearing in a very unfavorable light 
before those . whose natural, or at all events, whose 
official leader he is; and, worse than this, that the 
interests also of his parishioners, and so to some 
degree of the Church itself, are suffering through his 
inability to acquit himself in a manner which all have 
a right to expect of him. How often does it happen 
that a clerical chairman returns home from some 
parochial meeting with his temper rufiled in conse- 
quence of his inability to address a few remarks to his 
neighbors in an efi*ective manner; and with a galling 
sense of inferiority to opponents who in other intel- 
lectual qualifications are not his superiors; and with 
a painful consciousness that he has been wanting to 
the duties of his office. And all^ this results from 
nothing but the practice of reading written sermons; 
nothing else is in fault, for in the majority of cases 
of this kind the Clergyman is the most highly-edu- 
cated person present, and in many cases the only one. 



22 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

But this advantage is neutralized by his having neg- 
lected to acquire the power of speaking in public, 
which it was his duty to have done, and for doing 
which he has more opportunities than other people. 
20. Useful Let me point out another very serviceable 

also as it 

enables use which may be made of this power, — 

them to , p . . .11 

give lee- that of giving occasional lectures to one s 

parishioners. I know that matters of this 
kind will appear to some hardly worth mentioning; 
but any means by which a Clergyman can gain influ- 
ence legitimately, ceases to be unimportant to him; 
and the influence to be gained and the good to be done in 
this way will be in proportion to the size of the parish. 
Such lectures will show to one's parishioners both that 
this Minister does not confine his labors on their behalf 
to what can strictly be required of him, and that his 
knowledge also extends beyond the limits that are 
usually set to theological studies. That theological 
studies should be thus limited is always to be regret- 
ted; but more so at the present day than perhaps at 
any previous epoch, because many departments of 
knowledge, bearing more or less directly on Biblical 
interpretation and theology, have of late years made 
great advances, some of them being almost new 
sciences ; and the results of these recent advances in 
various parts of the field of knowledge have been very 
widely, I may say almost generally disseminated. 
Many minds, even in classes which a few years back 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 23 

had never been reached by such ideas, have thought of 
their connection with Theology and Biblical interpre- 
tation. These are facts, they are important facts, and 
we cannot afford to ignore them. The Clergy cer- 
tainly ought to pay some attention to them. And if, 
more particularly in town parishes, the Minister 
should be able by occasional addresses to guide on 
some of these subjects the minds of his parishioners, 
the benefit he will do them will be great, and the sense 
of it will be so much added to the strength of his own 
position. And even in cases, as must frequently 
happen, where others may not be disposed to adopt 
his views, still their estimate of him will be raised by 
finding that he is not unacquainted with questions of 
so much interest and importance, and that he has 
formed his own opinions upon them, and is able in 
public to set those opinions before them. 

The kind of knowledge I am speaking 21. Of 

more use to 
of here is required in an especial manner our Clergy 

of the Clergy of the National Church, priest of 

It is obvious that it is not required to the of^Rome^ 

same extent of the Priests of the Church ?^ ^^ff^J^^' 

mg Minis- 

of Rome or of the Ministers of Dissenting ters. 
congregations. The Priest of the Church of Rome is 
the minister of a system which ignores all the advances 
of knowledge. The old stock instances exhibit both 
the fact, and the reason why it is so. It appeared to 
the inquisitors who imprisoned Galileo that it was be- 



24 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

side the question to argue from physical facts that the 
earth moved. In the same way the doctors of Sala- 
manca treated the reasoning of Columbus to show that 
the earth was round. To their minds these questions 
were to be settled by theological, not by physical 
considerations. With the latter, the Priest of the 
Church of Rome has nothing to do. He is not con- 
cerned to know any thing of their bearings on theo- 
logical questions. He and the faithful laity of his 
Church must walk without inquiry and undeviatingly 
along a path which has been prescribed for them by 
infallible but far from omniscient authority. And this 
in some degree accounts for the gulf which is ever be- 
coming more and more impassable between the faith 
of the Church of Rome and the knowledge of its more 
intelligent members. On the other hand, the minister 
of the Dissenting congregation must, but for a dif- 
ferent reason, act in much the same way. The bulk of 
his people, that is those for whose spiritual and intel- 
lectual wants he must mainly provide, belong to the 
lower classes and the lower stratum of the middle class. 
Of course many are ever emerging from these classes 
and carrying their Dissent with them to a higher and 
more educated sphere of Society; but at present the 
exceptions, I suppose, are seldom sufficient, except in 
large towns, to affect the Minister's duty in this 
respect. The bulk of his congregation being unedu- 
cated, or but slightly educated, can have scarcely any 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 25 

acquaintance with, or be but very slightly interested 
in, those accessions to our stock of knowledge which 
are the rewards of modern and, in many particulars, 
very recent investigations. In making these remarks, 
it must, I think, be sufficiently obvious that my only 
wish is to make it clear that the Clergy of the Church 
of England are in a position where it is required of 
them to come forward as leaders of thought. This 
arises from two facts : first, that our Church embraces 
within her pale far the larger portion of the highly- 
educated classes, that is, the classes that are acquainted 
with and take an interest in the questions I have been 
referring to — the questions that arise out of our recent 
acquisitions in the field of knowledge; and then, that 
she does not put herself at all in hostility to inquiry, 
criticism, and science. The Clergy, therefore, when 
they pay some attention to these subjects, are not to 
be considered as going out of their way, and giving up 
time to matters in which they are not concerned; nay, 
rather in so doing they are discharging duties they owe 
to themselves, to their parishioners, and even to that 
which is their special study. And they will be doing 
good by giving occasional lectures upon these subjects. 
In speaking of the conclusion it is the 22. We 

should ac- 

object of these pages to press upon others, quire this 

. . p ., . power out of 

I Will not omit mention oi a consideration considera- 

which had some weight with myself at the wi'shes'of 

time; it was, that my parishioners had p^^ pansh- 
3 



26 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

had no voice in making me their Minister; and that if 
any influential part in the selection had been allowed 
to them, in all probability I should not have been the 
person chosen ; for I could not suppose that they 
would have preferred of their own free choice a Min- 
ister who was unable to minister to them the Word, 
as occasion required, from his own mind. It is just 
possible, I thought, that as they have been accustomed 
all their lives to hear sermons read, some of them may 
have given little or no thought to what is the best, or 
rather what is the right method of preaching. Or 
perhaps, the wrong method having been so long ac- 
ccepted in the Church of England, there might have 
been a difficulty, whatever might have been the pa- 
rishioners' opinion and wishes, in procuring for a small 
rural parish a minister who would be disposed and able, 
Sunday after Sunday, to preach extemporarily two 
carefully-prepared sermons. But these, I argued with 
myself, are only additional reasons for my doing 
what I am convinced is right in this matter. I ought 
to give my parishioners what I believe they would on 
sufficient grounds prefer. And even if, for the reasons 
just mentioned, they have not any clear and decided 
opinions on the subject as yet, still I ought not to take 
advantage of this : I ought to do just the contrary. I 
should endeavor to show them what is right and best. 
And, to take a wider view than that which one's own 
parish supplies, here is a practice which I believe is a 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHlNa. 27 

cause of great and increasing weakness to the Church. 
It ought to be discontinued as soon as possible. The 
only way of bringing this about is for some one here 
and some one there, as conviction comes home to each, 
to endeavor to set the matter right in his own pulpit. 
Those who are convinced must begin with themselves. 
It is from those who begin in this way that the prac- 
tice, if it be right, will spread to others. Already in 
every neighborhood one or two are to be found who 
have made a beginning. The effect of their preaching, 
although their sermons may not be in themselves all 
that they ought to be, proves that they are right. I 
will begin too. I will make the attempt honestly, and 
give the practice a fair trial. One's parishioners have 
a right to expect as much as this from their Minister. 
He ought also to undertake it for the Church's sake. 
Of course there will be some who will 23. Not an 

answer, that 

deny that considerations of this kind the Church 

does not, 
possess any weight; because, they will formally 

say, the fact is, that in the Church of oflhe^^ 
England the parishioners very rarely have ^^^^S^- 
any voice allowed them in the election of a Minister ; 
and so we may legitimately infer that no attention 
need be paid tp what they might have wished for in 
him under different circumstances. And again be- 
cause, as they will go on to argue, it is wrong for a 
Minister to suppose that he can be wiser than the 
practice and than the authorities of his Church in 



28 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

any matter. If, then, the Church neither condemns 
■written sermons, nor requires extemporary preaching, 
it is presumptuous in him to have opinions of his own 
on the subject, and still more so for him to act upon 
them. With these persons I cannot agree. A Cler- 
gyman ought to do what his parishioners ought to wish 
him to do, and ought to be what they ought to wish 
him to be. And though, as a general rule, it is proper 
that he should not consider himself wiser than the 
practice or than the authorities of his Church, still 
there are exceptions to all general rules, cases to which 
they do not apply, and just so it is with the question 
before us. True, the Church does not require us 
either to adopt extemporary preaching or to read 
written sermons, but leaves the choice to our own dis- 
cretion, the practice of the universal Church, with the 
single exception of our branch of it, being in favor of 
the former of the two methods. To reply that one is 
unwilling to constitute oneself a judge in the matter 
because the existing practice is to read written ser- 
mons, and the existing authorities of the Church are 
satisfied with its being so, is, I think, to misapprehend 
the question. The very point to be considered is. 
Are there not reasons, both of a general kind, appli- 
cable to all times and places, and of a special kind 
arising out of the circumstances under which the 
Church's work has at this day to be done, which seem 
to make it very desirable that our practice in this 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 29 

matter should be changed? Doubtless it would be 
impossible to exact extemporary preaching from all 
existing Incumbents; by the time, however, that 
another generation had arisen in the Church, difficul- 
ties which now appear very great would have melted 
away, especially should public opinion become de- 
cidedly and openly favorable to the practice. 

We are too much disposed to think 24. why 

we must 
that nothing more can be said on any consider the 

. wants and 

subjjgct than what we hear said on it by wishes of 

, . . , i n i the lower 

our own set m society, or, at ail events, classes. 
than what is said by the educated classes. 
There may be questions which it is allowable for us to 
settle for ourselves in this way. This question, how- 
ever, about Preaching is plainly not one of those 
that can be so settled. It is not an uncommon 
opinion among the educated classes, that it would be 
better if there were no sermons at all. It is also not 
an uncommon opinion among them that Extemporary 
Preaching is bad. They are fastidious ; the faults, 
therefore, of bad Extemporary Preaching are dis- 
tasteful to them. Besides which, it is often accom- 
panied, as it ought always to be, by an earnestness of 
appeal which, again, is distasteful to many. These 
opinions are openly expressed and frequently heard. 
But those Yr'ho hold them are not a very large propor- 
tion even of their own class, though their number 
appears to be very considerable from their being gen- 



30 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINO. 

erally so well able to attract attention to wliat they 
say. Supposing, however, it was the whole of the 
educated classes that held these opinions, even that 
would be very far from settling the question, for they 
are not in the majority amongst us; and it was not 
from them, as is well known, that Christianity took 
its rise. The knowledge that regenerates and saves, 
spread not from the upper classes to the lower, but 
from the lower to the upper. Not the rich, not the 
noble, not the learned, not the powerful, but the poor, 
the weak, the despised of the world, were the first to 
understand and receive it ; and it was from them that 
it ascended to the summits of society. They of 
Caesar's household accepted the proffered light, three 
hundred years before it was accepted by the Csesar 
himself. And if we were obliged at the present day 
to make our choice between the two in a country that 
had relapsed into unbelief, or in a heathen land yet 
to be brought to the knowledge of the Gospel, he who 
had considered what would most surely and most 
quickly conduce to the desired end, would prefer the 
conversion of the lower to that of the higher classes. 
The latter does not necessarily involve the former; 
but the former, if time be allowed,. necessarily involves 
the latter. The constant pressure from the mass 
below on the few above, is far more telling than the 
pressure of the few above on the mass below. Eesides, 
the upper few are ever dying out, and ever being re- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 31 

placed by those wlio emerge from the ranks below; 
and while those who sink from the upper to the lower 
class are worthless, those who rise from the lower to 
the upper are of the very best material. On this 
question we must not take the opinions of a rather 
talkative, but perhaps, in these matters, not the most 
influential portion of the upper class, for more than 
those opinions are worth; and if we find that the 
lower class, and a very large proportion of the lower 
strata of the middle class hold stiffly, opinions of an 
opposite kind, we must not pass by those opinions as 
if it mattered little how we regarded them. 

JSTow the fact is, that these classes have very de- 25. 
cided opinions on the subject of Preaching; opinions, 
too, the very reverse of those I have just referred to. 
They like Preaching. It is their chief intellectual 
pleasure and excitement. There is not any great 
variety of conversation in the society they frequent. 
They are not much given to reading novels or daily 
papers; nor do they attend theatres. Sermons oc- 
cupy a much larger space in their thoughts than they 
do in the thoudits of those whose minds are fed with 
a great variety of other food. Religion, too, with 
them is a more serious and engrossing matter. They 
are more conversant with the cares than with the 
pleasures of the world. Either by a simple process 
of reasoning, such as we might expect in them, or 
because they have taken up the idea from their Dis- 



32 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

senting neighbors (but perhaps their opinions on this 
subject rest on both these foundations), they have 
come to think that he is only a pretended Minister of 
the "Word, Tvho cannot in his own pulpit minister the 
Word from the stores of his own mind. He who, 
when he mislays or forgets his manuscript, is obliged 
to close the service without a sermon, they will not 
regard as a Minister of the Word. They hear our 
opponents calling such Ministers ''hirelings" and 
''dumb dogs," and some of them have come to repeat 
the opprobrious terms. It will never do for us to 
neglect (there are good reasons for our carefully con- 
sidering) the opinions of these classes. Their opinions, 
by a constant pressure from below, and by the rise of 
many from these classes to those above, are spread- 
ing upward. And is it fair to a large part of our 
congregations that we should put them in the dis- 
agreeable position of hearing their Minister taunted 
in this way by our opponents? And if they are 
unable to answer these taunts, does not that give rise 
to a probability that they will not always be able to 
bear them? 

26. Hitherto I have been recalling thoughts w^hich 
frequently occupied my mind before I commenced the 
practice of Extemporary Preaching, and which at 
last determined me to make the attempt. I will now 
proceed to some questions which the adoption of the 
practice will at times oblige one to discuss or con- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 33 

sider. I shall then describe the method I pursued for 
carrying out my determination, and afterwards give 
so much of the results of my experience in the com- 
position of sermons, and on some other kindred sub- 
jects, as I suppose may be of some use to others. 
One way, but a wholly inadequate way, 27. How 

of putting the question raised in these — Which is 

, TTTi -1 111 ^®^*' ^^ ^®^^ 

pages, IS to ask at once, VVnicn would be written ser- 

the best, a sermon written and read, or preach ex- 
one on the same subject preached extem- ^^^^^^1\q 
porarily, by the same person ? I am pre- ^® P^^- 
pared to hear many, both among the laity and the 
clergy, exclaim unhesitatingly, " The one that is writ- 
ten and read, because, at all events, it will be more 
carefully composed." In the course of what I have 
yet to say, I trust that I shall be able to bring my 
readers to see that the very reverse of this ought to 
be, and will generally be the case; but what I now 
wish to show is, how this question ought to be put. 
The comparison must be made, not between the writ- 
ten and the extemporary sermons of a man who has had 
some practice in writing and none in Extemporary 
Preaching, but of one who has given himself the 
trouble to put his power of Extemporary Preaching 
somewhat on a level with his attainments in written 
composition; for of course there can be no com- 
parison between the sermons of one who has not done 
this. Such an one may have acquired the power of 



34 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

writing with, as the case may be, more or less skill, 
but may not have acquired any power at all of Ex- 
temporary Preaching. In his case, therefore, the 
comparison would be between something and nothing. 
Another point to be settled in the consideration of 
this question is. What is meant by the best sermon? 
Plainly not the one that will read the best when in 
print, for primarily, and ex vi termini, a sermon is 
something intended to be spoken and heard, not 
something to be read; and what we are speaking 
about is not reading, but hearing sermons. The 
merits, then, of sermons are to be decided by the 
effect they respectively produce upon a present lis- 
tening congregation. The question before us, there- 
fore, is this: Which will produce the most powerful, 
abiding, and beneficial effect, a written and read ser- 
mon, or an extemporary sermon; both being delivered 
by a man who has paid as much attention to the one 
method as to the other ; or, if they are preached by dif- 
ferent persons, they must be persons of equal ability and 
attainments, and v/ho have had equal practice in their 
respective styles of composition and delivery? If the 
question be put in this way, and it is the only fair 
way of putting it, I can hardly imagine any clergy- 
man who has made some proficiency in the practice of 
speaking, or any congregation that listens to such a 
speaker, hesitating a moment for a reply to the ques- 
tion. This is one of those questions which to state 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 35 

properly is to answer. I need not, however, in this 

place, say any thing more directly upon it, because a 

great part of the contents of these pages are a reply 

to it; every thing indeed throughout them having 

reference to it. Here I only wish to show how the 

question ought to be put. 

I proceed to another point ; we should 28. Ex- 
temporary 
most of us be benefited by any method of Preaching 

secures con- 

carrymg on our work which might, as a tinuous 

T 1 ... study and 

general rule secure continuous improve- impiVe- 
ment in the composition and delivery of °^'^"^' 
our sermons. My own experience has taught me 
that writing and reading one's sermons does not effect 
this, but that preaching extemporarily sermons as 
carefully studied as extemporary sermons always 
ought to be, does effect it. Bacon tells us that read- 
ing makes a full man, writing an accurate man, and 
speaking a ready man. What I recommend em- 
braces these three kinds of discipline. The Extem- 
porary Preacher who is in the constant practice of 
properly studying his subject with the view of 
making his discourse as worthy of his office and as 
effective as possible, will be drawn on into many 
fields of inquiry. So also it may be said will the 
writer of sermons ; but not, I think so continuously, 
or with so much benefit to himself. The man who 
preaches extemporarily, that is, who gives himself the 
trouble to do it properly, must have the subject-matter 



36 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

of his sermons very frequently in his thoughts, and 
must give himself a great deal of trouble in perfect- 
ing every sermon he preaches; and this amount of 
thought directed to his work will bring him sooner 
or later to understand what materials his sermons 
require. He will thus be led on to be ever adding 
to his critical, historical, and philological knowledge ; 
he will keep up and extend his acquaintance with the 
works of the great writers on ethical science ; nor will 
he allow himself to be ignorant of the controversies 
of the present or of past times. He will find these 
kinds of knowledge necessary, because he will find 
that there are parts of his subject which it will be 
impossible for him to handle properly without them. 
He will, I think, become a far deeper and more varied 
student than the man who reads written sermons. 
He is likely to read more, and certainly to digest 
more completely the fruits of his reading, and to make 
them more completely his own. The man who reads 
written sermons, supposing him to have started with 
an equally conscientious desire to do his work 
thoroughly, is not under the same pressure and impul- 
sion to study widely and deeply, and to make the 
fruits of his study his own. The pressure is neither 
so strong nor so continuous. His method does not 
require it. He has to produce something on paper, 
and not in his own mind. There is a wide difi'erence 
between these two ways of working, and these two 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 37 

kinds of work. He has not so constantly before liis 
mind that which is the end of speaking — the effect to 
be produced. When the writer of sermons has seven 
or eight hundred by him, he must be very different 
from the generality of mankind if he still continues 
the labor of writing week after week. And indeed, 
why should he ? He has nothing fresh to write upon ; 
and after so much practice in writing, he can hardly 
hope to produce any thing better than what he has 
ready at hand. With the Extemporary Preacher it 
is quite another thing. His work is never done. His 
weekly preparation is incessant. His studies can 
never be laid aside. Still as he groAVS old he learns 
something every day. Of course, I never speak of 
the ignorant ranter, the frothy declaimer, or the 
fluent talker. Their way of discoursing will always 
astonish the multitude, but that is not what will 
satisfy the man who has a proper respect for himself, 
for his congregation, and for his sacred office. He 
will study more or less for every sermon, and will 
make out, after careful consideration, the form in 
which his materials should be arranged on every 
occasion: every occasion thus becoming a fresh study 
both for matter and form. There can therefore be no 
doubt but that in a course of years he will acquire 
more, and learn better how to use what he has ac- 
quired, than a reader of written sermons. 



38 EXTEMPOEAEY PREACHING. 

Nor will the practice of Extemporary 29. As it 

presup- 

Preaching deprive a man of the advantage poses wri- 

. tina^, it will 

of attaining to that accuracy which is a also secure 

result of written composition. I am ad- ^^^"^^^^' 
dressing myself to those who have energy enough to 
persevere for some years, or for whatever time may be 
required, in the practice of carefully composing their 
sermons during the week, and then preaching them 
extemporarily on the Sunday. The time will come 
when full notes, containing only the more important 
parts in extenso, will be sufficient; and at last nothing 
more will in most cases be needed than such a sketch 
as may be vmtten on one side of half a sheet of note- 
paper, the rest of the study being carried on mentally, 
or without the aid of writing. I suppose that for 
several years more or less of writing will be necessary, 
because that alone will demonstrate to the preacher 
that he has mastered his subject and properly arranged 
his materials; and so will enable his mind to rest on 
the fact that it has already produced what it now has 
only to reproduce in the pulpit. And I can imagine 
persons preferring to the last to write very full ab- 
stracts of what they intend to say, and doing this 
from a religious regard for their work. A sermon, 
such persons will feel, is too important a work, too 
much, depends upon it, to justify the preacher in 
leaving any thing to the chances of the moment. 
This must be done to some extent in a debate, and it 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 39 

may be done generally in secular oratory, when the 
main object is to please; but it is irreverent and un- 
wise to trust in this way to the moment for the matter 
or the arrangement of a sermon: it will, therefore, I 
think, be better that the preacher, however practised, 
should never wholly lay aside the pen. He might 
perhaps do without it, and the majority of his congre- 
gation be none the less pleased with him; but there 
will alvfays be some who would have more highly ap- 
preciated a better studied and more carefully arranged 
address. The preacher, too, ought to be. much dis- 
satisfied with himself should he fail to give his subject 
every advantage. He will be aAvare whether it could 
have been put better; and if so, the knowledge of how 
his subject and congregation have suffered by his 
neo;lio;ence oug;ht to distress him. We find that the 
most perfect masters of ancient oratory wrote their 
speeches : there are additional reasons for the preachers 
of the Word doing the same. I think then that we 
may conclude that, as a class, the Extemporary 
Preachers will be fuller, not less accurate, and cer- 
tainly readier men than the readers of written sermons. 
Another very important advantan;e pos- 30. This is 

•^ ^ ° -^ the natural 

sessed by the Extemporary Preacher is the and most 

_ . . , T ^ 1 T impi^essive 

superiority ot his method of delivery, method of 
One of the first objects of the preacher '^^^'^''''^^ 
and of the reader alike must be to gain the attention 
of the audience. In his efforts to do this, the preacher 



40 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

follows the natural metliod — the method every one is 
using all his life through, and with the application of 
which to himself every one is equally familiar. It is 
the method of conversation. It is the only way in 
which men use language in their face-to-face in- 
tercourse with each other. When a man speaks to 
another, the auditor feels that his attention is chal- 
lenged, and therefore attention is given as a matter of 
course and of habit. It would be unreasonable if the 
auditor did not attend. The speaker is speaking to 
him. There seems no room for choice. The auditor 
is called upon not only to attend, but to do what 
attention to a speaker implies, to remember, and to 
judge of what is being said. This is understood by 
what is seen of the present working of the mind of 
the speaker, in the play of his features, in the tones 
of his voice, and in the direct bearing of what he is 
saying, either by way of explanation, illustration, or 
appeal, on the actual feelings of the hearers, or on 
the thoughts that are at that moment in their minds. 
Contrast with this the effect of reading. I hardly 
need go into particulars. This is not the natural 
mode of address. It is a mode with which no one 
can be familiar. It does not challenge attention. 
We feel that the reader's mind is not directed to our 
mind, as a speaker's would be; but rather that it is 
addressed to an imaginary mind. It is addressed to 
an imaginary unbeliever, or an imaginary misbeliever, 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 41 

to an imaginary worldling, or to an imaginary wrong- 
doer of some kind or other. It is not addressed to 
what is passing in the minds of the men and women 
then and there present. And, as a matter of fact, the 
effect corresponds with this difference ; and the reader 
fails to gain attention to that degree which is accorded 
without any effort on the part of the congregation to 
the Extemporary Preacher. We all know that read- 
ing does not possess the requisites for enabling it 
always to command our attention. And after all there 
are reasonable grounds why the congregation should 
not make much effort to listen to what is read. It is 
not the living mind that is wrestling with their minds, 
but in reality a MS., which through the medium of 
the reader's voice, is addressing them. It is the MS. 
that is dealing with them, a MS. which they might 
read for themselves with as much profit perhaps as 
they will derive from hearing it read to them. 

I will now advert to two most opposite ^1- An- 
swer to the 
objections on this subject, both of which objection 

_ . 1 T 1 1 n ^^^^ it is an 

are frequently urged; both, however, oi offering 

which result from a misapprehension of nothinff^^ ^ 

what is meant by Extemporary Preaching. 

I have heard a clergyman say that he disliked the 

practice, " because, like David, he would not make an 

offering unto the Lord his God of that which cost him 

nothing." My reply to him was, that I thought that 

his objection might more frequently be levelled at ser- 

4* 



42 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

mons that are read than at those that are preached 
extemporarilj. The most conscientious reader of 
written sermons most frequently read what on the 
occasion of his reading it, cost him nothing, inasmuch 
as it was written years before. This, however, can 
never be the case with the conscientious Extemporary 
Preacher, for, as every sermon he preaches must be 
studied, his preaching is indeed a perpetual oiFering 
of that which costs him much. To be prepared every 
Sunday of his life, however busy he may have been 
during the week about other matters, with two care- 
fully studied sermons, though not more than the 
Minister of the Word ought to do, is more, I am dis- 
posed to think, than those who are capable of quoting 
David's sentiment as a reason for rejecting Extempo- 
rary Preaching, are ever likely to do themselves. 
This objection may be valid against those who enter 
the pulpit merely to declaim, or to talk incoherently 
on religious subjects for half an hour — ^it is not un- 
charitable to say, — in accordance rather with the 
darkness than with any light that is within them. 
But I would put in the balance against such preachers 
a class which must be far more numerous — that of the 
readers of unimpressive, uninteresting, and unpro- 
fitable sermons, and who, as long as they continue to be 
readers, will never improve ; and here we must not for- 
get that the laity tell us that to listen to such sermons 
is on their part an offering which costs them much. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 43 

Another obiection, which takes iust the ^2. And 

'^ ' ^ that it takes 

opposite ground, is that Extemporary too much 

time. It is 

Preaching requires too much time and not learning 
trouble. Those who raise this objection ^ote, but 
generally suppose, I find, that the Ex- Sirg^^bj^ct. 
temporary Preacher learns his sermon by 
rote, and delivers it as a player does his part. It is 
obvious that if this objection is made in good faith, it 
must be made by those who have themselves such 
small mental powers that they cannot understand how 
any one can attain to the faculty of explaining vivd 
voce a subject he has previously studied and digested, 
and which he has a strong desire to convey and com- 
mend to the minds of others. The objection, how- 
ever, I believe is only partially made in good faith. 
Such an objector really does find some difficulty in 
forming a conception of a mental eiFort of this kind — 
no great thing after all, indeed not more than every 
well-educated youth ought to be capable of making — 
but he also, and that is probably his chief object, 
wishes to insinuate that the Extemporary Preacher's 
motive is vanity, and vanity of such an inordinate and 
irrational kind, that he will, in order to gratify it, 
give himself the trouble of learning by heart two ser- 
mons every week of his life. If a man could be 
found who might be able to make such an effort of 
perseverance and memory, still, I think, he would 
hardly be disposed to continue it after a few months' 



44 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

experience of tlie time it required. Besides, if a man 
were to trust in this way to his memory only, he must 
occasionally break down in the most complete and dis- 
tressing manner. This objection is as puerile as the 
former one. Neither of the two kinds of preaching 
they suppose at all resembles that which I am endea- 
voring to recommend in these pages. Still it may be 
of some use to have made this mention of them; for 
marking off what is not meant, contributes towards 
giving a definite idea of what is meant. 
33. It is a X third objection one hears very fre- 

security 

against ver- quently urged is, that Extemporary 

Ibal repeti- . . . 

tions. rreacmng abounds m repetitions. 1 dare 

say a great deal of repetition is heard in 
the so-called sermons of mere declaimers and extem- 
porary talkers, but it ought never to be heard in those 
of the Extemporary Preacher. He is a man who 
knows what sermons ought to be, and takes care that 
the matter of each of his own shall be arranged on a plan 
for every part of which there is a good reason. Nothing 
can be omitted or transposed. This excludes the 
possibility of repetition. And we may ask, What 
reason is there for repetitions in religious any more 
than in political or judicial addresses? Indeed, there 
is less reason; for an advocate or a parliamentary 
speaker must often be obliged to speak when more or 
less unprepared to do so. This can never happen to 
a preacher. I am writing to educated men, who are 



EXTEMPOEARY PREACHINa. 45 

too self-respecting and have too mucli respect for 
their sacred work, ever to omit the previous consid- 
eration of what thej shall say from the pulpit. There 
will be some who will not do this as carefully as it 
should be done, or who, from a want of skill in com- 
position, which nature has denied them the power of 
acquiring, or from an inability to put any thing, even 
to their own minds, otherwise than in a confused and 
illogical manner, will be exposed to this objection; 
but these are people who would be just as confused, 
as illogical, and incoherent, and as full of repetitions 
of ideas, if not of words, in written discourses. I am 
disposed to think that this objection is frequently 
made on very insuflBcient grounds, being merely taken 
up as the readiest weapon that comes to hand, when 
the objector for some other reason dislikes either the 
preacher or Extemporary Preaching. 

As this other reason is one that is ^4. It is 

too earnest 

rather felt than expressed, it results in and direct 

1 T -n 1 M • T • • ^^^ some 

what 1 Will describe as the tacit objection hearers. 

of those who, not being in religion of a zealous tem- 
perament themselves, dislike being brought in contact 
with the zeal of others. To such persons there is an 
earnestness and directness in extemporary preaching 
which is distasteful. But the fault here is not in the 
preacher, or in the method he adopts. What is really 
objected to, is what others will regard as one of the 
peculiar merits of that method. 



46 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

35. False I have seen the practice of readme 

inferences in ^ 

favor of written sermons defended on the ground 

reading, t i -r» i . i i m 

from false that the Preacher is not a debater. Irue. 
ana ogies. -^^^ ^^^ addresses of no kind to be de- 
livered without book except such as are called for in 
debate? And are we to believe that the practice with 
respect to Preaching of all Churches in all times, ex- 
cepting that of our own Church, is wrong ? And what 
is there in exposition, exhortation, rebuke, warning, 
and the appeals a Minister of the Word must make 
that renders the reading them from a MS. the most 
appropriate method of delivering them ? It is also 
said that the Preacher is near of kin to the lecturer 
on Moral Philosophy, and that as lectures on this 
subject are generally read; therefore sermons also 
should be read. No such thing. It might be better 
if the lecturer were so completely master of his sub- 
ject as to be able to speak upon it. But there is no 
analogy between the two. The Preacher is not a 
lecturer; nor is the lecturer a Preacher. A man may 
be a very good lecturer on the Exegesis of Scripture, 
or on Theology, and yet be a very ineffective Preacher. 

36. The I -^vish the kind of Preacher I have in 

true Preach- 
er is very view in this book to be distinguished in as 

different -i i ^ i 

from the trenchant a manner as possible irom what 

Preacher. ^^ Called the popular Preacher. Many 

being acquainted only with the latter 

have a prejudice against extemporary preaching of 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 47 

every kind. I endeavor to describe in these pages 
the learning, the never-ending study and thought, the 
style, the aims of the former. The popular Preacher, 
however, may be described, taking the common type 
of the class with instances of which most persons are 
familiar, as one in whom, regarded as a speaker, the 
gifts of imaginative power and of great command of 
language have mastered the understanding and the 
judgment; and whose knowledge seldom makes his 
hearers aware of their own ignorance. This description 
of the popular JPreacher does not lead us to infer in 
him the possession of much capacity for doing useful 
work in the Ministry of the Word. And, as a matter 
of fact, very little is done, in such a way as to have any 
permanent effect, by such Preachers. Even those who 
are themselves of such mental calibre as to admire and 
run after a popular Preacher of this kind would be 
more benefited by a wise and well furnished Preacher. 
These are the very minds that require the discipline 
of exact thought, and accurate reasoning. Popular 
sermons full of flights of the imagination, and decked 
out with brilliancy of language, occupy among the 
works of the human mind the position the jelly-fish 
holds in the animal kingdom. Its coloring possesses 
some attractive brightness; but it is an invertebrate 
affair, without bone or muscle. As soon as you at- 
tempt to handle it, it collapses into nothing. Popular 
sermons will seldom bear printing. Their appropriate 



48 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

element is the peculiar atmosphere which surrounds 
the pulpit of the popular Preacher. They cannot 
he carried away, or turned to any useful purpose. 
No one expects them to yield meat for the strong 
man; but neither in truth do they supply much milk 
for babes. It is hard that the style of Preaching 
which in its substance, often in its aims, is most unlike 
this, should suffer in any body's estimation, merely 
from their both happening to use the same method of 
delivery. 



CHAPTER II. 



MY OWN METHOD OF ACQUIRING THE POWER OP 
PREACHING EX TEMPORE. 



I WILL now proceed to describe to my l- The 

^ "^ method I 

younger brethren in the Ministry the adopted. 

T 1 T 1 1 . • How ser- 

metnod i adopted in carrying out my mons for 

resolution. It was at the beginning of porary" 
the year 1854, and I commenced by Pleaching 

•^ ' *' should be 

writing during the week two sermons, studied and 

composed. 
Knowing that they were to be preached 

without the aid of the manuscripts, or even notes, I 

studied the matter and arrangement of each more 

carefully than I had ever done before for sermons I 

had written with the view of their being merely read 

to the congregation. I was led to do this because I 

foresaw that confusion of thought and redundancy of 

matter not properly required by the subject must be 

avoided, as faults of this kind would very probably 

confuse me in the pulpit ; while nothing could more 

contribute to aid my memory and smooth my path 

while speaking than a natural and logical arrange- 

5 49 



50 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

ment of all that I had to say. That I might make as 
sure as possible of this, I divided each discourse into 
chapters, each chapter being a distinct part of the 
subject; and each chapter I divided into paragraphs, 
each paragraph being a distinct step in the treatment 
of what was the subject of the chapter. To each 
chapter was prefixed a Roman, to each paragraph an 
Arabic numeral. Between the paragraphs I left small 
intervals, in which I wrote, in a few words, a heading 
of the contents of the paragraph. The headings I 
afterwards copied on one side of half a sheet of note- 
paper. This enabled me to see at a glance how I had 
treated my subject, and to judge more easily than I 
could do by turning over the pages of the MS. whether 
my method of treating it was natural and logical. On 
Saturday I again looked over my two sermons, in 
doing so, making perhaps more use of the short ab- 
stracts than of the complete MSS. And again on the 
Sunday, I gave the half-hour preceding each service 
to the final consideration of what I was then about to 
preach. These two subsequent studies enabled me to 
make several improvements both in the way of addi- 
tions and omissions ; because what I was endeavoring 
to do was to form each sermon into a connected and 
coherent whole, from which every thing must be elimi- 
nated that had not a definite purpose. My sermons, 
then, having been written in the course of the previous 
week, after much consideration of the subject, and 



EXTEMPOKARY PREACHING. 51 

having been again studied on Saturday, and once 
more referred to before the service on Sunday, the re- 
sult was, that when I entered the church I almost 
knew the MS. by heart. The line of argument and 
every explanation and illustration were distinctly before 
my mind. In consequence, I did not any where pause 
for a thought or a word. I had no idea that this was 
to be regarded as extemporary preaching, yet I was 
not dissatisfied with it for a beginning. It encouraged 
me to hope, that though I was only now attempting 
what I ought to have been taught at school^ more 
than twenty years earlier, and though I had no na- 
tural command of language, and was besides what is 
called nervous, and that to a very painful degree, 
still, that I might at last succeed in acquiring the 
power of addre-ssing my congregation from the stores 
of my own mind, which I had become convinced ought 
to be the practice of every Minister of the Word. 
Some of my readers will probably be 2. Neces- 

surprised at finding me entering at all on vious study 

and com- 
particulars of this kmd. Of course there position. 

are many persons who would rather have it supposed 
that they possess the power of composing and de- 
livering sermons properly by the gift of Nature, or at 
all events who would rather conceal from the world 
the method by which they acquired it. But I am not 

' Boys might readily acquire at school a power which would 
afterwards become that of speaking in public, by being made to 



52 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

writing these pages for the perusal of those, if there 
be any such persons, upon whom Nature has bestowed 
this gift. I have, however, little belief in orators of 
any kind, and above all of good preachers, by the 
mere grace of Nature. A man does not even become 
a mob-orator without practice. We certainly do not 
hear of any great orator ever having found himself in 
ready-made possession of his power of skilfully mani- 
pulating, if I may so speak, thought and language; 
but we know that he attained to it by laborious study 
and long practice. Not but that we may find many 
who have a kind of natural fluency; but I am very 
far from attaching much value to this, taken merely 
by itself, whether it be a natural gift or an acquired 
power. What I am recommending is, to use, if you 
have it, or to acquire, if you have it not, the power 
of delivering fluently and properly a sermon properly 
composed by yourself: and to compose a sermon pro- 
perly does not come by the gift of Nature. It is not 
the result of an intuitive process, but of study, know- 
ledge, reflection. A man must collect his materials ; 
he must be able to judge of the value and use of these 
materials; and he must learn how to deal with them 
and arrange them. I do not believe that there is any 
royal road to the accomplishment of these things, any 

give the substance of their written themes or essays vivd voce, and 
in the same way to give an account of what they may have been 
translating or reading. 



EXTEMPOKAKY PREACHING. 53 

more than there is to the acquisition of any thing else 
that is worth having. Some, of course, have a greater 
aptitude for this work than others, but that is all that 
can be said. Energy and perseverance will make 
ample amends for some deficiency of natural aptitude ; 
and no one need be ashamed of energy and perseve- 
rance; without them a natural aptitude for preaching 
will be of little value to its possessor or to his parish- 
ioners. Genius, we all know, is necessary for great 
eminence in any department of art, or literature, or 
intellectual work of any kind, but these pages are not 
written with the slightest idea of their being at all in- 
strumental in producing great eminence in any of 
those who may read them. Those who have the 
capacity for becoming greatly eminent will know of 
themselves, without the assistance of any thing I or 
others can tell them, in what way to secure that emi- 
nence. They will work, and work effectually, without 
such guidance. My object is to invite the attention 
of my younger brethren to that which is the subject 
of these pages ; and to show to those who may come 
to agree with me as to what they ought to do, that 
they may probably be able to give effect to what 
they deem their duty in this matter, by following the 
course I adopted and found tolerably successful. I 
am not at all prejudiced in favor of my own method. 
There will be some who at an early period of their 
lives became habituated to speaking in public, and 

5* 



54 EXTEMPOKAEY PKEACHING. 

they may therefore think the method I followed too 
tedious and laborious. Possibly they may be able to 
dispense with some of the writing I recommend; but 
not, I think, with any of the thought and study I 
recommend. All that I am solicitous about is, that 
we should see what is our duty as Ministers of the 
Word, and endeavor to carry it out. If what I am 
writing should produce such an effect in the minds of 
some, I am quite content that others should be sur- 
prised at my giving myself the trouble to describe 
what I thought and what I did in this matter. 

But to return to the method I was pur- 3. Ser- 
mons writ- 
suing. I went on as I had commenced, ten for 

- ^ . reading 

Every week i wrote two sermons ^?^ ex- proved 
tensOj after having carefully studied my f^r Extern- 
subjects and arranged the plan of each ?,°.^^^-^. 
before sitting down to write. This pre- 
vious arrangement of plan is necessary, otherwise the 
probability is, that the sermon will be written without 
a plan. I never again used an old sermon. I found 
all I possessed unfit for Extemporary Preaching. The 
faults which I now saw made them unsuitable for 
being so used were faults which must have made them 
difficult for the congregation to have followed with 
continuous apprehension when read. They were more 
or less full of irrelevant thoughts, w^ords, and even 
paragraphs. They were often unprogressive through- 
out — that is, they did not set out with a distinct pur- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 55 

pose to be reached in the end, to which every thing 
in the course of the sermon was duly and regularly 
subordinated. They were sometimes very disjointed 
and unconnected, all the parts not being logically 
parts of the same whole, but only in juxtaposition ; 
because, as in the game of dominoes, the beginning 
of a paragraph had been suggested by the close of 
that whieh preceded it. They had too little coherence 
to be lifted off the paper. These, and other faults 
which had not been observed, or, if observed, had not 
been corrected when the MSS. were only to be read, 
became apparent when I looked over them with the 
view of preaching them extemporarily. This one 
fact, which I am setting down just as I found it, must 
alone go some way towards proving the probable in- 
feriority of the method of reading written discourses. 
I soon began to study and compose 4. Advis- 

able to pre- 

during the week more than the two ser- pare MSS. 

for Extem- 

mons necessary for the coming Sunday, porary 
I did this designedly, because we all 011^11 ^"^ 
know that a man can get through more ^^^^'^P'^^J'^s 

o o upon which 

work by doin^ one thinsi; at a time, than °^® would 

, ^ wish to 

by doing several things at the same time; preach. 
and I thought it proper that I should have sermons of 
my own carefully studied and composed on every par- 
agraph in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and 
the Epistles of doctrinal or practical interest, and 
on all those chapters of the Old Testament which are 



56 EXTEMPORAEY PREACHING. 

read as the first lessons of the Sunday morning and 
afternoon services throughout the year. I set myself 
down to this task with the determination to complete it 
before I began to occupy myself with any thing else. 
I completed it in a little more than four years, in 
which time I had composed not far short of five hun- 
dred and fifty sermons in extenso. Whether I was 
away from home, or whether I had friends staying 
with me, I endeavored not to intermit my work en- 
tirely. Of course I soon got ahead of what was re- 
quired for the coming Sunday. Hence it happened 
that I frequently preached a sermon I had written 
some months, or even, after a time, that I had written 
a year or more previously ; but as they had all been 
composed with a view to being used for Extemporary 
Preaching, I found it as easy to preach those that had 
been written some months previously as one that had 
been written during the foregoing week. Having now 
completed the number of sermons I wished to have by 
me in writing, I for some time only wrote my MSS. 
at about half the length that would be required in 
preaching them ; and then, after a time, I wrote only 
short abstracts on half a sheet of note-paper. 

5. Result Twelve years have now passed since 1 

of twelve '^ ^ ^ 

years' ex- began to work on this plan, and I have not 

The Extern- yet had occasion to prBach all the ser- 

Preacher Hions I wrote in these first four years. 

"^reichThe ^^^® ^^ ™^ ^^^^' ^ ^^^® ^^®^ ^^^® *^^^ 



EXTEMPORAEY PREACHING. 57 

once, but practically I have never preached same ser- 
mon twice. 
the same sermon twice: for as I never 

preach without devoting to the subject I am going to 
preach upon all the attention I can give it, and with- 
out mastering all I am going to say upon it, I almost 
in every case more or less recast the abstract, some- 
times completely remodelling it; and as I have long 
trusted entirely to the moment for the language and 
the composition of what I have to say, though, after 
five or six years I may preach from an old text, and 
may, in preparing for the pulpit on the occasion of my 
doing so, look over an old MS., it will not be an old 
sermon that I shall preach, but one that will have the 
benefit of the study and practice of the five or six in- 
tervening years. It would surprise one not acquainted 
with such matters, how greatly a little increase in 
one's own knowledge, or a slight change in one's views, 
or a change in the requirements of the times, or of 
one's parishioners at the moment, will affect even the 
form of a discourse, by leading to the introduction of 
some new ideas, or by making subordinate that which 
previously held a prominent place, or vice versd; but 
so it is. Indeed, it can rarely happen that the Ex- 
temporary Preacher who attends to his work will 
preach the same sermon twice; the language of course 
can never be repeated, for the changes that take place 
in one's mind, even if in the meantime there has been 
nothing that might be called mental growth, and the 



58 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

difference in one's feelings at tlie moment of preach- 
ing, render that impossible. The activity of the ima- 
gination and the flow of language are ever varying, 
as they depend in a great measure on the circum- 
stances of the moment. 

6. The Those who are constitutionally shy and 

chief diffi- ^ -^ 

culty is to nervous, and whose natural defects of this 

first effort. hind have perhaps been increased, as is 
frequently the case with clergymen, by 
the habits of a studious life, will find that a very 
great effort is required for making the first attempt. 
It is voluntarily submitting oneself to a kind of unseen 
martyrdom. But the first Sunday will do much 
towards mitigating these distressing feelings, because 
it will prove the possibility, where before all was un- 
certainty, of carrying out one's resolve. That be- 
ginning will enable the preacher to feel assured that 
if he will give himself the same amount of trouble he 
has just expended in preparing for his first Sunday, 
he will on subsequent Sundays do at least as well and 
be as safe from breaking down and hesitation; or 
rather, he may have reason for hoping that continued 
practice will give a proportionate increase of con- 
fidence, ease, and power. Here, as in so many other 
things, it is the first step which is the diflicult one to 
take; that once taken, the way is smoothed for all the 
steps that are to follow. I note this for the encour- 
agement of those who may be thinking of making 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 59 

the attempt. Thej will find their first eff*ort far less 
of a failure than they are beforehand disposed to an- 
ticipate. This will very much diminish what they 
may now be supposing will be the mental distress of 
their subsequent eiforts. In some cases, of course, 
these uncomfortable feelings will only be removed 
very gradually. Many of the most accustomed 
speakers have told us that they never rose to speak in 
public without experiencing sensations of this kind ; 
though, indeed, there must be more reason for their 
feeling in this way in the contests of public life, than 
there can be for the minister of the Word, who is only 
called upon to make a short address to his own 
friendly congregation on his own familiar subjects. 
Speaking from my own experience, I must say that 
this feeling, to a painful degree, may last for several 
years, and even afterwards may never entirely leave 
one. But I found, even in my first years of Extem- 
porary Preaching, when it was most troublesome, that 
it seldom lasted beyond the first few sentences. One 
soon becomes, from the necessity of having to attend 
to what he is about, so completely absorbed in his 
subject, as generally to lose all consciousness even of 
the presence of the congregation, certainly to lose all 
consciousness of self. The beginner is obliged to be 
so intent on his subject, that with him this will fre- 
quently be the case. When practice has given him an 
easier command of himself, he will be able to attend 



60 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING.. 

both to his subject and to his congregation at the 
same time. 

7. What But I may be asked, Why incur these 

feeling 

harder to disagreeable feelings, when they may be 
the distress escaped by reading your sermons? I 
to speak^ ^'^ply, that I incurred them because the 
extempore. feelings of humiliation and shame I ex- 
perienced, as a Minister of the Word, at reading my 
sermons, were more distressing. The latter were 
more distressing, because they impelled me to en- 
counter and to continue to bear the former. The 
feelings that are suggested Sunday after Sunday, and 
year after year, by the sight of an uninterested, in- 
attentive, and uninstructed congregation, are far more 
disagreeable. There is absolutely nothing to com- 
jgensate for these feelings, while you are amply 
compensated for the former by the consciousness that 
you are discharging a sacred duty to the best of your 
ability, and to the ever-increasing benefit of those to 
whom you have undertaken to minister the Word. 

8. In The method by which a man may at- 

some cases 

Exposition tempt to acquire the power of Extempo- 

™^y he -r» 1 • Ml p 

used as YAYj Preaching will oi course depend in a 

for^Ext^m- gi'cat measure upon the power he has of 
porarj speaking in public at the time the resolu- 

tion is made and the attempt commenced. 
Throughout these pages I am supposing the case, 
which is that of a large proportion of the Clergy, of a 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 61 

man who has to begin from the beginning, or even 
from a worse point than the beginning, — that, I mean, 
at which a man finds himself who has always been in 
the habit of reading his discourses, all the while living 
a somewhat retired and studious life. Such a person 
comes to have a profound distrust of himself, and 
looks upon the demands that Extemporary Preaching 
will make upon him as impossibilities in his case: he 
feels himself utterly incapable of complying with 
them. There are many such, and for them mainly 
I am writing. But there are others, who have made 
at the University or elsewhere some attempts to speak 
in public, and found them not altogether unsuccessful; 
and others, again, who are conscious of possessing 
some natural powers of this kind. These persons 
will probably be disposed to adopt some easier and 
shorter method than the one I am recommending. 
The following anecdote, which describes a case I am 
acquainted with, gives one of these other methods. A 
Clergyman, not long after his arrival in the parish of 
which he had recently become the Incumbent, was 
making one of his first rounds of pastoral visits. On 
entering the house of a petty shopkeeper, he expressed 
some regret at not having seen the man at church on 
the previous Sunday. The man replied, that it was 
true; he had not been at the church; and it was not 
his habit to be there on Sunday, for he was a Dis- 
senter. The Clergyman repeated his expressions of 
6 



62 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

regret, and asked the man why he was a Dissenter. 
The man replied, that as the reason was asked, 
he would unreservedly give it. In the Dissenters' 
chapels, he said, the Minister always addressed the 
congregation from what was in his own mind; and 
what the Minister said was said in such a manner 
that it was understood by the people, and moved 
their hearts. The case, however, was very different 
in the church. There, the Minister, although they 
were told that he spent many years at school and the 
University, and that he was a very learned man, was 
unable, from his own mind, to say any thing to his 
people; and what he read to them was seldom under- 
stood by them, and did not come home to their hearts. 
And their conclusion was, that they could not believe 
that Grod's Spirit was with the Church-Minister, to 
guide him in what he was reading, and to aid him in 
reaching their hearts. This statement of the reason 
which had induced several of his parishioners to for- 
sake the church for the chapel, the Clergyman found 
himself quite unable to answer. It is true that the 
argument it contains does not at every point hold 
water; but it would have been impossible to have 
answered it satisfactorily to the small tradesman, for 
after all there was in it a great deal of solid truth. 
This the Clergyman felt strongly. Here was a cause 
of weakness to the Church, and a reproach to it which 
was very discreditable to the Clergy. The more he 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 63 

thought of what the man had said, the more clearly 
he saw that there was but one way of replying to it, 
and that was by doing what he was told the Clergy 
had not the power to do. He decided at once what 
he would do. He had never spoken in public, but he 
determined immediately to acquire the power of doing 
so. He was aware that he possessed some natural 
aptitude for speaking, and he therefore resolved to 
commence forthwith the following plan. On the ensu- 
ing Sunday he took the Bible up into the pulpit, 
opened it at the first chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, 
and announced to the congregation that it was his 
intention to expound continuously the whole of that 
Gospel. He was sure that he would have something 
to say upon every paragraph, and that he would be 
able to say it; and he trusted that, as he went on, he 
would find that he required less and less of the text 
for his half-hour's exposition. He was not disap- 
pointed. Before he got through St. Matthew's Gos- 
pel, he found himself able to preach from no more of 
the text than he would have required formerly for 
one of his written sermons. The objection of the 
petty tradesman and of those who reasoned like 
him was completely met, and they returned, some 
altogether and some in part, to the Church they had 
forsaken. Here was a great advantage gained. But 
I must remind my readers that only a part of what I 
am recommending in these pages was accomplished. 



G4 EXTEMPORAKY PREACHING. 

This Clergyman had acquired, and on very easy terms, 
the power of preaching in the way which alone can 
secure the attention and respect of ordinary congrega- 
tions, and which has, besides, other advantages; but 
he had done, in doing this, nothing to enrich the 
matter, to enlarge the views, to strengthen the rea- 
soning, and to improve the arrangement and style of 
what he said. Let us suppose that every thing of 
this kind was added in time; for, if not, then the 
petty tradesman and his fellow-seceders did not gain 
much more from the sermons of the parish church to 
which they had returned, than they might have gained 
from those they would have heard at the chapel they 
had been induced to abandon. How a thing is said, 
signifies much ; but what it is that is said, signifies 
more. 
9. Reflec- I -^vas in the habit for several years of 

tions and 

hints the committing to paper any thoughts which 

actual . f 1 CI 1 1 

practice of the services oi the feunday, and particu- 
pora^" larly the sermons, had suggested. The 

Preaching obiect of this practice was, to preserve 

suggested, ^ ■■• j r 

The years any thino; that occurred to me, and which 

1854, 1855, -^ ^ 

1856. I thought it might be of use to remember. 

A selection from these memoranda, it now appears to 

me, might have, for those of my readers who may be 

disposed to give my recommendations a trial, some 

little interest, perhaps even some little advantage. I 

will therefore select a few for their perusal. The en- 



EXTEMPOKARY PREACHING. 65 

tries for the first year, 1854, have been lost. In 
1855, those that express a sense of slowness of ad- 
vance, sometimes of no advance at all, are frequent ; 
but I do not find one that presents any indication of 
my having ever from the first wavered in my resolu- 
tion, or of my having been dissatisfied either with the 
amount of work it imposed upon me in these first 
years, or with the abandonment it necessitated of my 
former pursuits. At that time the labor was great 
and the apparent fruits were but slight; this, how- 
ever, never discouraged me. 

In 1856 I find, among many I omit, the following 
entries : — 

Jan. 29. — I am now speaking with less prepara- 
tion, and yet with more ease than I did a year ago. 
I must therefore endeavor to be on my guard against 
falling into any thing like slovenly fluency. By care- 
ful attention, I suppose, the habit of speaking with 
clearness and accuracy may be attained with as much 
certainty as any other habit. 

March 23. — Of late I have advanced very slowly, 
if at all. But I remember that, as the advantage of 
being able to discharge one's duty in the pulpit pro- 
perly is great, so the difficulty of acquiring the power 
of doing it must be expected to be proportionately 
great. 

"Nil sine magno 
Vita labore dedit mortalibus." 



6Q EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

Auff. 81.— I find that, next to a good subject well 
prepared, what sets one most at ease, is a good con- 
gregation. A small, inattentive congregation de- 
presses. It implies that the service, of which the 
exposition of the Word is an important part, has 
failed, as conducted bj the Minister, to awaken in- 
terest. This want of interest in the congregation 
reacts upon him who is more or less the cause of it. 
A good congregation, for the opposite reason (for the 
feeling of interest in what is going on is very infec- 
tious), gives wings to the spirit of the preacher. It 
contributes much towards loosening his tongue and 
giving him freedom of speech. 

Oct. 26. — I felt sure to-day that the attention 
which must be given to sermons intended for Extem- 
porary Preaching, such as I have been obliged to give 
to mine for now more than two years, must improve 
a Minister of the Word in sermon-writing. 

Wov. 16. — I begin to feel the good effect of attend- 
ing to what is passing in the minds of the congrega- 
tion. The speaker is aroused by seeing or feeling 
that the minds of his hearers are in contact with his 
own mind. This is a stimulus to thought and expres- 
sion of which I knew nothing while I read my ser- 
mons. 

l<^* 1857. tTan. 4. — I was told to-day by one of my 
most intelligent parishioners, that the congregation 
were, as far as he knew, without an exception, in 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 67 

favor of mj having abandoned the practice of reading 
my sermons, and adopted that of preaching them 
extemporarilj. As to my own feelings, though not 
altogether dissatisfied with my progress, I am very 
far indeed removed from being satisfied with my per- 
formance. I had much to unlearn as well as much 
to learn, and my progress is very slow; I have how- 
ever, no thought of abandoning the attempt I am 
making. 

Feh. 8. — What I say is beginning to be better than 
what I am capable of writing; it is much better put. 
It was so to-day. 

Feh. 15. — I find that the more entirely I trust to 
the moment for composition, the more completely my 
subject gets possession of me. This, I think I may 
take for granted, makes one's speaking more natural 
and forcible, for it then becomes the expression of the 
present thought. 

March 8. — Preached to-day from a MS. I had 
written a year and a half ago. In studying it for the 
pulpit I made great alterations in it. This goes some 
way towards proving to me that I can write a better 
sermon now than I could then. 

March 22. — In the morning I did badly, though 
I had thought I had a good MS. to preach from. 
In the evening I did better, though I had thought 
that my MS. was very inferior to that used in the 
morning. In speaking, one's powers vary very much, 



68 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

in accordance with the circumstances of the moment, 
though sometimes not in the manner one would have 
supposed beforehand ; for one is often able to throw 
off completely the feelings and thoughts which up to 
the moment of speaking Avould obstinately retain pos- 
session of the mind. 

3farch 29. — I felt to-day that I was now able to 
preach without a written preparation. 

Mat/ 3. — I gave, instead of a sermon, an exposition 
this afternoon. I became conscious of difficulties and 
faults peculiar to this form of discourse. In an ex- 
position I see care must be taken to prevent its 
becoming fragmentary. The way in which the para- 
graphs, or the consideration of the successive partic- 
ulars, are connected must be attended to. The 
repetition of the same connecting phrases must be 
avoided. Oneness of purpose in all that is said, from 
the difficulty of securing it in an exposition, ought to 
be kept in view as an especial aim. 

Mai/ 10. — I made very little use of my MS. this 
morning. It was almost useless, plainly because I 
had not attained to sufficiently clear ideas upon my 
subject at the time I wrote the MS. This shows that 
to write in haste — almost, as is sometimes done, 
against time, — it is not only to waste your labor, but 
it is somethino; still worse; for it is doino^ what it is 
probable may confuse you, when you attempt to 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. by 

preach what you wrote without a proper mastery of 
your subject, or at inauspicious moments. 

Mai/ 17. — The Minister of the Word must remem- 
ber that to speak persuasively is an important part of 
his work. To have a large and attentive congregation 
is not a bad proof, though of course not a conclusive 
one, that he has attained to this power. 

MaT/ 31. — I found this morning that I could not 
interest myself in my work, or exert myself; conse- 
quently I preached in a slovenly and perfunctory 
manner. I was rather going over so much ground, 
than endeavoring to implant certain ideas and awaken 
certain feelings in the minds of the people before me. 

Juli/ 5. — To look the congregation in the face is 
often both a stimulus to the speaker and a guide to 
him in the treatment of his subject. It tells him 
whether he is understood, and whether he should 
drop, or continue to dwell a little longer on what he 
is speaking about. 

Aucf. 30. — I felt to-day that I had more complete 
command of my faculties than usual. I traced this 
plainly to the mentally invigorating effects of having 
been travelling about for the preceding month. The 
great variety of minds, just like the variety of natural 
scenes and objects one meets with in travelling, re- 
freshes and strengthens. 

Oct. 18. — One of the great advantages a speaker 
has over a reader, is, that he has grasped his whole 



70 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

subject, and sets it before bis mind's eye; he is there- 
fore able, as he goes on, to give its proper breadth 
and color to each part. He works up to and makes 
his points. The reader must confine himself to what 
he has before him, and so cannot do these things. 

Nov. 8. — I felt something to-day of the hearts and 
minds of the people I was addressing. I was con- 
scious that their thought and feeling were aroused. I 
seemed to myself to be giving expression to their 
thought and feeling. This rapport between the 
speaker and his hearers is necessary. Their thoughts 
and feelings are partly to be read in their faces, and 
partly to be divined. To keep oneself in this way in 
sympathy with one's hearers, is utterly to repudiate 
the pestilential idea of oratorical display. It is the 
substitution of the thought of one's audience for the 
thought of oneself. 

Nov. 15. — The preacher should begin by planting 
his subject in the minds of the congregation. He 
should do this in such a way as, if possible, to interest 
them, and set them thinking upon it. They will then 
go along with the speaker, and be more disposed to 
adopt his thoughts and feelings. If they are them- 
selves thinking on the subject, he will appear to be 
giving utterance to their thoughts and feelings. 

Dec. 25. Christmas Day. — I heard a young Extem- 
porary Preacher in Ipswich this afternoon. I wished 
I could have got hold of him, and made him under- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 71 

stand that what he wanted was some years of hard 
study, both thought and reading, to enable him to 
have something to say that would be worth hearing. 
He is evidently not aware of the vast difference be- 
tween saying something, and having something to 
say. His efforts were not directed to any definite 
purpose. He made no points. His sermon, if it 
could be so called, was one dead level of religious 
common-places. 

Dec, 27. — While preaching, my mind now is never 
occupied about the language I am using, further than 
to avoid words which would be unintelligible to the 
rural poor. As one's object is to be understood, to 
move, and to persuade, one ought to be careful to say 
nothing but what may be readily followed and taken 
in by the present congregation. And having ceased 
to be occupied with the language I use, I can attend 
more closely to reasoning out and illustrating the 
point before me. 

I have now completed the fourth year of practice ^^• 
in Extemporary Preaching. Whatever else might 
have been done with this long period of my working 
life, I am not dissatisfied with having devoted it to 
this object. I say this as a Minister of the Word; 
though possibly I could not, under any circumstances, 
have employed the time to better purpose. It would, 
however, have been far better had I begun to prac- 
tise speaking in public twenty years earlier. 



72 EXTEMPORAEY PREACHING. 

Throughout this year there arc no entries of dis- 
content at slowness of progress, but there are some of 
an opposite character. 

I find in this year the following entries without 
date : — 

There are three kinds of material for Extemporary 
Speaking — Reasoning, Feeling, and Imagination. 
The first care of the Extemporary Preacher must be 
to have each of these at command. In the next place, 
he must be able to clothe in appropriate language 
what each supplies. Lastly, he must have judgment 
to know when to use and how much to use of each. 
These three materials of speaking must be used as 
different colored threads would be used in a cloth of 
fair design. Each must always be in hand for use, 
ready to be taken up and laid down as required. 
Sometimes the three will be used in the same para- 
graph. Sometimes, Reasoning, Feeling, or Imagi- 
nation will be indicated in the use of a single word. 

One of the great advantages of Extemporary 
Preaching is that it obliges the preacher to under- 
stand to some extent what he is speaking about. 
What he understands, there is some prospect of his 
being able to make intelligible to his congregation. 

The matter of what a man says cannot be better 
than his knowledge and his logic. This is why the 
ordinary run of popular preachers have no weight at 



EXTEMPORAKY PREACHINa. 73 

all in the world. Thej must improve their logic, 
and increase their knowledge. 

1858. Jan. 10. — I Avas very much dissatisfied ^2. 
with myself this afternoon. I did badly because I had 
not clearly made out to myself beforehand a part of 
my argument. 

Feb. 14. — Lately I have found myself so entirely 
absorbed by my subject as to forget the presence of 
my hearers. This is a mista.ke and must be guarded 
against. The speaker ought never to lose sight of 
the way in which his audience is regarding his sub- 
ject, and what he is saying of it. 

April 18. — For the first time I used a MS. from 
which I had already preached. It was one that had 
been written and used at the beginning of 1854. I 
find that I have very much advanced beyond what I 
was then capable of doing. The old MS. proved 
almost useless. I recast the whole of it. Nothing 
of the kind would have been done under the system 
of reading. I should not have outgrown a MS. in 
four years ; or, if I had, I should hardly have 
noticed it, when nothing was to be done but read 
what was already prepared. The having to master, 
and construct in the mind what was to be said, 
showed that something better could now be done than 
had been done in 1854. 

May 9. — I still have nearly one hundred unused 
MSS., but used to-day, instead of taking two of 
7 



.74 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

these, two that I had written and used four years 
ago. This is good practice, to discover faults, and 
correct them; and, in consequence of having in« 
creased and more digested one's knowledge and 
enlarged one's experience of what is required in 
preaching, to remodel an old MS. This accustoms 
one never to use one's materials without thought and 
understanding. 

July 18. — I find that in preaching there is always 
a great difference between my way of treating the 
beginning and my way of treating the latter part of 
a sermon. At first I am always more diffuse than I 
am towards the close. This difference probably arises 
from a difference in the matter. The beginning of a 
sermon is generally explanatory; and explanations 
admit of and almost invite diffuseness. The latter 
part, however, consists generally of application and 
exhortation. Diffuseness here would mean dilution 
and weakness. I also find that diffuseness is far 
easier than conciseness. Diffuseness does not con- 
fuse the speaker, though it may the hearer. The at- 
tempt at conciseness has a tendency to confuse the 
speaker. A well-executed conciseness is a great 
help, and very pleasing to the hearer. 

Seft. 12. — I preached this morning for the first 
time from a sketch drawn out on one side of half a 
sheet of note-paper. I had sufficiently studied the 
subject in my mind. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 75 

Oct. 10. — I did badly this morning, because I bad 
not made out my subject distinctly to myself. De- 
fective power of speaking, and insufficient study of 
what one is to speak about, are two very different 
things. 

Oct. 24. — My powers of extemporary thought are 
much enlarged. At first, my memory was chiefly 
exercised. Then, language occupied me much while 
speaking. Now, neither memory nor language occupy 
me much. My mind is chiefly occupied with seeking 
for arguments and illustrations, and arranging what 
I have to say. My practice in Extemporary Preach- 
ing has convinced me of the duality of the mind — or 
rather that the mind is capable of doing two things at 
the same moment. While I am speaking, — which is 
one operation, for it is the clothing of thought in lan- 
guage, — I am always thinking of what is coming, 
sometimes very intently ; or of the congregation, of 
how they will understand and receive what I am 
saying. Whether these two operations are performed 
simultaneously by the same organ, or by two distinct 
yet connected organs, like the two eyes, or the two 
ears, is a question which I suppose admits of dis- 
cussion. If the two organs are distinct, they may be 
so in the fashion of the two hands or the two feet, 
which are capable of acting simultaneously either for 
a conjoint purpose, or each for a separate purpose of 



76 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

its own. Or the rapidity of thought may be so great 
as to dispense apparently with time, and thus to pre- 
clude the thinker from distinguishing between the 
laying down of one subject and the taking up of 
another. The attention given to the two subjects may 
in reality be not simultaneous, but consecutive ; we 
may, however, be incapable of observing the consecu- 
tiveness of the second act of attention to the first. 
I would illustrate this supposition by the familiar in- 
stance of a long and eventful dream being comprised 
in the instantaneous act of waking, when a noise or a 
word has been the cause of the sleeper's having been 
aroused, and his whole dream was suggested by the 
very noise or word that awoke him. 

Dec. 26. — I have frequently of late preached with- 
out any written study, except a few headings set down 
in a few lines. 

I close this year with the entry, that 1 believe I 
have during the year improved in preaching, but that 
I. can hardly say that I have made any approaches 
towards my ideal of a preacher. My imaginative 
powers generally appear to me to be paralyzed when 
I am in the pulpit. My reasoning powers are not af- 
fected in this way. 

13. 1859. — 1 had now entirely ceased to write sermons 
in extenso. Seven years have since passed, and during 
that time I have never had occasion to do more than 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 77 

set down a few short notes, that I might be able to 
judge of the plan of what I was about to say; and 
that no part of it, — as must sometimes be the case if 
no memoranda are made, — might slip out of my mind, 
and be lost. 



CHAPTER III 



SOME REMARKS ON THE COMPOSITION OF SERMONS. 



1. Com- I NOW proceed to say something on a 

position of ^ 

sermons— subject to which passing references have 
tiveness frequently been made in the foregoing 

upon"it! pages — that of the Composition of Ser- 

mons. Upon this depends not only the 
effectiveness of sermons, but also the very power of 
preaching them effectively. This is true of them even 
when addressed to the ignorant and uncultivated, who 
are more impressed by what they hear, understand it 
more readily, and are able to carry more of it away 
when the plain natural rules of composition are 
observed. 

2. They The first and most essential principle 
must, first 

of all, be is, that a sermon must be a vertebrate 

vertebrate . . ^ , , , i i 

composi- composition, it must nave a vertebral 
tions. column — a back-bone. When this has 

been secured, other things maybe attended to; and 
just as the higher vertebrate animals have appendages 
in the shape of limbs, so may this vertebrate composi- 
78 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 79 

tiou — a sermon — be the better for an appendage or 
two. You may depart occasionally from the direct 
line of the column of construction to append here what 
may serve as a leg, to give the body of the discourse 
as it were a little movement, and here what may serve 
as an arm, to smite the wrong-doer, or to raise the 
distressed in mind, body, or estate. But these ri;iust 
grow naturally from it, and their use must be obvious. 
They will give to what is being said motion and action ; 
but the vertebral column itself is the body and sub- 
stance of the sermon: these additions are the means 
it uses for eifecting its immediate objects. 

Sometimes we hear of a speaker having lost the 
thread of his discourse; sometimes also we hear an 
Extemporary Preacher accused of having repeated 
himself. Here we have an accident and a fault, both 
of which may be avoided by the observance of the rule 
I have just laid down; for if his sermon be so com- 
posed, the preacher must begin at the beginning and 
go on to the end. What he has to say will then not 
admit of his doubling back. He will always know 
just where he is, what he has said, and what he has 
still to say. 

But speaking in this way of the compo- 3. To bo 

regarded as 
sition of sermons, suggests the objection works of 

that it would give them an artificial cha- high order 

racter. We must distinguish between 

what has an artificial character and what is a work of 



80 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

art, which every sermon ought to be, in the sense in 
which the building itself in which the sermon is de- 
livered is, or a statue, or a picture. Indeed, there 
is a sense in which the works of nature, as for instance, 
the terrestrial landscape, the starry firmament, a flower, 
a leaf, a tree, an animal, the human face, the human 
figure, are, just like the works of man, works of art, 
although the terms are commonly used in opposition 
to each other. The difference between them is, that 
the latter are the works of a human, and the former 
of a Divine Artist. What brings any thing under 
this category, is, that it is conceived and executed 
with reference to certain principles of proportion, 
contrast, form, color, and greater or less prominence 
of certain parts. Conformity in each instance to the 
principles which that particular kind of work requires, 
makes the thing done suitable for its purpose, and also 
makes it a work of art. All this applies strictly to 
sermons, which, as they are addressed to the under- 
standing and feelings, do in truth occupy a very high 
place among works of art. 
4. Must ;But I proceed with the remarks I have 

have unity 

of purpose, to make on their composition. No great 
eifect can be produced on the mind and feelings by 
what is confused and indistinct, and wanting in 
directness and intelligibility. A man who is un- 
acquainted with, or careless about what are the rules 
of art belonging to this subject, will sometimes begin 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 81 

an argument and then interrupt himself with some 
irrelevant considerations. An incomplete argument, 
or an argument thus broken into pieces, cannot have 
so much force as it would have had if it had been 
managed in a more workmanlike manner. An anal- 
ogous fault, equally or even more inartistic, is to in- 
troduce any thing that will produce a different effect 
from that at which the preacher is or should be 
aiming, either as the object of his whole sermon or of 
that particular part of it where the discordant thought 
or feeling is suggested. He ought not to use so much 
as a word which would divert the attention of his con- 
gregation from his object, by suggesting an irrelevant 
or superfluous idea. All the powers of thought and 
feeling both in himself and in his audience, should be 
made to converge on the present object. This is what 
we do in conversation. A preacher who understands 
how his purpose is to be effected will do the same in 
the pulpit. Matter and words that are irrelevajit or 
superfluous are objectionable in a sermon for the same 
reasons for which any thing of the same description 
would be objectionable in a poem, statue, picture, or 
any other work of art. The difference is, that in such 
a work as a picture or statue, the whole being taken 
in by the eye at a glance, if there be any thing irrele- 
vant or superfluous, it is detected instantly; but a 
sermon, before judgment can be passed on it, requires 
half an hour's attention and a knowledge of what is 



82 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

really beside its purpose and aim. This implies in 
the hearer an amount of knowledge which many per- 
sons do not possess, and an amount of attention which 
few persons are disposed to give. Such people will 
generally allow to pass unnoticed much that may be 
at discord with and destructive of the effect the ser- 
mon should have been intended to produce. Still, 
even in their cases, the effectiveness of a sermon 
would be very much increased by a diminution of 
these faults. 
6. What Another obiection, besides that which 

better in ^ . 

sermons mistakes conformity to the rules of art 

tural elo- for an artificial character, may be made 
quencc. ^^ ^-^^ more measured and reasoned kind 

of speaking which may be expected from the adoption 
of my recommendations as to regular study and careful 
composition prcA^ous to delivery : it may be said this 
cannot produce any thing at all resembling true 
natural eloquence. But may it not produce some- 
thing much better, and much more suited to the pul- 
pit ? We can imagine what would be the effect on 
the mind, of hearing twice every Sunday, for half an 
hour at a time, bursts of true natural eloquence. It 
would become tedious, perhaps insufferable. Ac- 
curacy and variety of knowledge, and thoughtfulness 
in the man one has to hear so frequently, are better 
than what is meant by true natural eloquence, which 
is generally accompanied with more or less of ignc- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 83 

ranee, with want of balance, want of breadth of view 
and of profundity, and of connectedness and of dis- 
tinctness of object. These are excellences which can 
be attained only by patient thought and study. 

In sermon-writino- and preaching a ques- ^- '^^- 
_ o i spective 

tion sometimes arises, as to the most ap- claims of or- 

. . . , dinary 

propriate language. As it is the somewhat phraseology 

T . 1 . jp i 1 1 n and that of 

archaic character oi the language oi our ^^^^ English 
English Bible and of our Book of Common ^^^^^• 
Prayer which gives rise to this question, it is evident 
that whatever difficulties it contains are peculiar among 
public speakers to the preacher. Some would solve 
the question -by cutting the knot. They say, "Archaic 
language is unfit for the purposes of the preacher, as 
it would be for the purposes of any other speaker. 
Speakers, of whatever kind they may be, should use 
the language of the day — it must be the language 
which is most readily understood; and to be readily 
understood is the object of all speakers." These per- 
sons mean that they would have the language of our 
English Bible and Book of Common Prayer dropped 
in the pulpit, and the language of the literature of the 
day adopted in its place. This solution, however, of 
the question is dictated rather by an exaggeration of 
the common-sense view of the matter, than by consi- 
derations of good taste, or of what would produce the 
best effect on the minds of the congregation. An 
instance will perhaps show this better than an argu- 



84 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

ment. A preacher who some years ago vfas of some 
note in a country town where he held a benefice, but 
was afterwards the minister of a more critical congre- 
gation elsewhere, agreed with those whose opinion I 
have just quoted; and once gave (it was his ordinary 
style of language) the following illustration of the 
practice of using modern phraseology in sermons. 
His subject was, "The Children of Light," and his 
object at the moment was to convey the idea that they 
are the recipients of light. With this in view he said, 
" Brethren, to use a philosophic " (he meant a scientific) 
" term, you are photogenic." The word was taken 
from the walls of a lucifer-match manufactory in Mile 
End, which is seen from the Great Eastern Railway; 
where, however, whether correctly or not, it means 
exactly the reverse of what the preacher supposed, 
being applied there to the production, not the reception 
of light. It is obvious that the use in the pulpit of 
such fire-new, and would-be scientific, terms as the 
above, even when applied with perfect correctness, can 
only be justified by necessity. They jar too much on 
the ears of educated hearers. If the object be to con- 
nect the pulpit as closely as possible with the facts and 
thoughts of the present day, the object is a most proper 
one; and the means for doing this which language 
supplies are not to be neglected; but excess is possi- 
ble in the use of these means, as in most other things, 
and ought to be guarded against. 



EXTEMPORAKY PREACHING. 85 

The opposite extreme, that of the preacher con- 7. 
fining himself exclusively to the language of our English 
Bible, is also to be avoided. The effect of this is to 
take the hearer out of the living realities of the actual 
world, and to transport him to a region of shadows ; 
for such are words and phrases which are no longer in 
common use : life has departed from them. The dis- 
crepancy between ordinary language and that of the 
Authorized Version is rapidly increasing; the time 
therefore cannot be very distant when the bad effect 
of preaching in the language of the latter will be gen- 
erally obvious. In the mean time, judgment, good 
taste, and a common-sense view of the requirements 
of what we have to speak about, must determine for 
the preacher in what way he can most effectively ex- 
press his meaning. Some when wishing to inculcate 
the practice of "every virtue" would urge the hearer 
in Biblical phrase " to fulfil all righteousness." Some- 
thing may be objected to either phrase — at all events 
it may be said of the latter that the idea it calls up is 
faint, and not precisely what the preacher wishes to 
convey. One might hesitate between the Holy Spirit 
and Holy Ghost, feeling that the latter name is be- 
coming obsolete, and that the former awakens more 
thought, because to our ears more instinct with mean- 
ing. Trespasses and transgressions are words which 
have almost ceased to appeal to the conscience. 



86 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

Naughtiness is no longer applied to the delinquencies 
of grown-up persons. 

8. But that multitudes of Biblical words and 
phrases are thus more or less obsolete is not all; there 
is also the fact that a great deal of what the preacher 
has to say cannot be expressed at all, or only very im- 
perfectly, in Biblical phraseology. One almost shrinks 
from mentioning in the pulpit any place — as, for 
instance, Paris or New York — the name of which does 
not occur in the Bible : but this is false taste, and is 
wrong. 

9. Our rule then should be to say whatever ought 
to be said, on every subject that comes before us in the 
Ministry of the Word, in the most distinct, direct, and 
intelligible way; not fearing to use modern phrase- 
ology, if it will bring our meaning more forcibly home 
to the understandings of our congregations than 
Biblical phraseology would. But at the same time we 
need not avoid, I would rather say we ought to prefer, 
Biblical phraseology wherever it can be used without 
detriment to the effectiveness of what we are desirous 
of saying. Its use will have this advantage, that it 
will contribute to invest our discourse with something 
of a sacred character by connecting it with the source 
from whence it derives its inspiration. While, however, 
we do this, we must be careful not to do it to such an 
extent as to invest our discourse with an unreal and 
conventional character, as if it were all about matters 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 87 

that men had ceased to think or to talk about; for if 
we do not speak in the language in which men think, 
what we say will not come home to their understand- 
ings or their feelings. 

The two most important, and at the . 1^- ^V^^- 

mgs of ser- 

same time the most difficult, sentences in mons will 

/-\p generally 

a sermon are the first and the last. Of be com- 
these the last is the more difficult of the 
two. The first will frequently supply the key-note to 
all that is to follow; while it suggests the object of 
the discourse, or brings at once into prominency some 
fact or thought which is material to the Preacher's 
purpose, and which he therefore desires that the con- 
gregation should bear in mind. The sentence that is 
to do this in the most appropriate manner for the 
whole of what is to follow, can seldom be hit upon 
when one first sits down to write a sermon ; but it will 
always readily present itself to the mind when the 
whole subject has been completely grasped, and not 
only its aim, but the way in which each part contributes 
to that aim, distinctly made out. When all this stands 
clearly and palpably before the mind's eye, the point 
from which the preacher is to start will suggest itself. 
This is so certainly the spontaneous result of knowing 
what one is about, and has to do, that in Extemporary 
Preaching the beginning of a sermon may generally be 
left to the moment of delivery. In actual composition, 
therefore, the first paragraph will generally be most 



88 EXTEMPOKARY PREACHING. 

to the purpose if written last, because it is properly 
the result of what all the rest happens to be. The 
preacher will know the precise point from which he is 
to set out when he knows the exact point he is to make 
for, and the ground he is to go over. 
11. Further Again, it is by no means an invariable 

remarks on 

the opening rule that the preacher should begin by 

SGntdicG 

stating his subject, because if the subject 
be of such a na'ture that the congregation will not 
readily understand or accept it, it is obvious tliat it may 
be better to introduce the announcement of it with 
some argument, or statement, or illustration, that will 
lead on to it, and dispose the congregation to accept it. 
12. Con- The conclusion, however, of a sermon is 

eluding sen- 
tence diffi- perhaps of greater importance and of 

different greater difficulty. Its purpose may be 
^^ ^* either to sum up in an impressive manner 

what has gone before, which must be done by recalling 
as much of it as can be recalled in a few short sen- 
tences; or to state forcibly the conclusion of the 
whole ; or to bring all that has been said to bear on 
the reason and conscience of the hearer. It might 
appear that it must be easy enough to conclude, be- 
cause when a speaker has said all that he has to say 
upon a subject, then he has arrived at the natural end 
of the matter. It is not so, however, with a sermon. 
If one were writing a disquisition, or an essay, that 
would generally be sufficient; but the preacher has 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 89 

furthermore to make the treatment of his subject im- 
pressive ; he has to put it in such a way that it shall 
not only convince the reason, but also interest the 
feelings of the congregation. He has to leave 
an impression — to interest — to move — to persuade. 
Hence arises the difficulty of concluding in a satis- 
factory manner, for it is no easy thing that has to be 
done, and it has to be done in a few words ; and the 
feeling will often be left on the preacher's mind that 
the effect of his sermon was short of what it might 
have been had there been more concentration and 
power in his conclusion. 

Several of Bishop Butler's celebrated fifteen i^- 
sermons conclude Avith some Scripture which more or 
less embodies his general aim, or recalls his argument. 
This method has great advantages. It is as it were a 
summary of one's own sermon in the authoritative 
language of the Word of God. The mind receives it 
as a strongly corroborative argument, which produces 
this effect without its having been directly used, or 
stated as an argument. 

Many of our Lord's parables conclude with in- in- 
stances of the most wonderful condensation combined 
with exhortation — for example, those of the Good 
Samaritan, the Pharisee and publican, the unjust 
steward, the unforgiving servant, the wise and foolish 
virgins, kc. It will not often perhaps happen that 
such terminations as these would be suitable to our 

8* 



90 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

sermons, still it would be of use to the preacher to 
regard them as perfect models which may occasionally 
be imitated. 

15. What ]gut whatever be the form of conclusion 

to be avoid- 
ed in con- which a sermon may require, nothing can 

elusions. n ' T 1 1 (^ cf 

be more frigid and destructive of eiFect 
than the announcement so frequently heard, that it is 
the conclusion. The "In conclusion," or "Now to 
conclude," or "Finally," appears generally to bring a 
feeling of relief both to the Minister and to the con- 
gregation; although they are sometimes put in such a 
way as to imply that it is time alone which is obliging 
the preacher to end his discourse. The effect of this 
is very bad. 

16. Uni- In his commencements and terminations, 

formity of 

plan to be and the whole construction of his sermons, 

avoided. • •> c ■^^^ 

How. the preacher must careiuliy avoid faUing 

ment of " ^^^^ *^® habitual use of any single plan. 

divisions to -^ Sunday, and this for year after 

be avoided. ./ ./ 7 ^ 

year, he has to preach two sermons; how 
insufferably tedious then will it prove to his auditors, 
if all his sermons should be constructed alike. This 
cannot be the case if his plan is always taken from his 
subject. If this be done, the requisite amount of 
variety in treatment will be secured. The caution 
now being given is by no means unnecessary, for one 
form of the fault is, at all events, very common, that 
of dividing the subject. Many preachers seem to 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 91 

think that in a sermon this is a necessity ; accordingly 
every sermon they preach is divided. You will hear 
again and again in sermon after sermon — "This text 
has three," or, it may be, "half-a-dozen points." 
Then they are enunciated and numbered. This is 
followed by the separate treatment of each. The 
irksomeness of composing and preaching such sermons 
must be very great, though as they are the preacher's 
own work he may be somewhat blind to their dulness ; 
but he ought to consider what must be the effect of 
two sermons of this kind every Sunday year after year 
on the minds of educated, and even of uneducated, 
people. It will often be the case that a text contains 
two or three statements or particulars, and it may be 
necessary for the preacher to bear this in mind in 
treating his subject, and to take them separately; and 
when he has done with the consideration of the first, 
to mark the transition to the next in some way, as for 
instance by saying, "We now pass to the considera- 
tion of another point our text contains," or something 
of this kind, and so on with the rest: but it can very 
rarely happen that there is any necessity at the com- 
mencement of an address of half an hour's duration to 
enunciate the divisions of the subject. They may, 
without the preacher's doing this, be marked distinctly 
enough, if requisite, in the treatment of the subject. 
The first moments of your address, when you are 
always listened to attentively, may be much better 



92 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

employed. The old joke against this style of preach- 
ing, that there is in it a great deal of carving, but 
very little meat, is far from being all that can be said 
against it. Its sameness, its departure from the na- 
tural method of treating a subject, the inevitable 
unmeaningness of many divisions of this kind, present 
a combination of faults that is quite insufferable. 
17. Repe- A fault that is very common, but not so 

tition of 

ideas to be obvious as it is common, is that of the 
avoided. . . ^ ^ „ . . 

repetition oi ideas. Une who sits down 

to write without knowing distinctly what he is going 
to aim at, or the path by which he is to reach his aim, 
is constantly liable to fall into the fault of reproducing 
the same thoughts in different words. Sermons of this 
kind are very wearisome, without the hearer being 
always able to point out the cause, for it generally 
happens that one requires, in order to discover what is 
amiss in such sermons, more than is possessed by most 
men of the power of analyzing and arranging ideas. 
This kind of repetition, from its very nature, is more 
likely to be found in written than in Extemporary Ser- 
mons, for in the latter a proper grasp of the subject 
must be taken, and therefore in its treatment an ad- 
vance will be made by distinct steps to a distinct end. 
There are some whose sermons are rather an array of 
Texts connected in some way or other with their sub- 
ject, than a discourse upon or a proper treatment of 
their subject. Their practice is a very simple one. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 9$ 

It is to collect these Texts, and then to enlarge upon 
them seriatim. This is what South tells us the Puri- 
tans of his day called "a saving way of Preaching." 
His own comment on this description of their style 
being, " that he knew nothing it saved, except the 
time and thought of the Preacher." In this method 
repetition of ideas is unavoidable. 

Exhortation is a necessary part of a l^- Exhor- 
tation ne- 
sermon, because the object of preaching cessary— in 

. -I -n A what it 

is to mnuence the will. Arguments and de- consists. 
monstrations only affect the reason and the understand- 
ing. And though the reason may be thoroughly con- 
vinced, the preacher's work is only done in part. He 
aims at convincing the reason with the ulterior view 
of regarding such convictions as levers by which he 
hopes to move the will. He has then to consider how 
this leverage is to be brought to bear. It can only be 
done by showing that what has been proved and 
established is advantageous or disadvantageous to the 
hearer. And this can only be done by addressing the 
feelings and sentiments of the congregation ; that is, 
by appealing to their moral sense, to their religious 
sentiments, to enlightened self-love, to their approval 
of what is just, and true, and noble, and lovable, to 
their hopes and fears, to their desires and affections. 
The attempt in these ways to awaken emotion in the 
congregation, and so to lead it to accept or reject what 
reasoning has demonstrated, is properly exhortation. 



94 EXTEMPORAKY PREACHING. 

It is an appeal to their feelings on the subject before 
them. It is absurd to object to these appeals to the 
feelings, for if thej are not to be made, then there 
can be no such thing as exhortation ; and then there 
can be no such thing as influencing the will: for 
reasoning, as a general rule, cannot do it. The will 
is reached, as nature seems to have intended, through 
the feelings. The demonstration of one of Euclid's 
problems convinces the understanding, but, as this is 
not a subject about which the feelings can be inter- 
ested, the matter ends when the proof is understood: 
the will can be in no way affected by that proof. So 
you may demonstrate the statements that Jesus Christ 
is the Light of the world, and the Saviour of the 
world, but you will have done little, as a preacher, 
till by making men feel that it is for their advantage 
to receive Him in these capacities, you shall have 
brought them to wish so to receive Him. To do this 
you must appeal to their sense of sin, to their desire 
to be at peace with God, to their gratitude, to their 
natural approval of all that is pure and holy, and to 
any other feelings by which you may hope to draw 
them to desire what you have proved. These appeals 
are exhortations. 

19. Light The preacher who attends to what he 
and shade 
necessary. is about will often be reminded by his own 

preaching, as well as by what he hears from others, 

that a sermon requires both light and shade. It is a 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 95 

great fault when every thing from first to last is kept 
at one uniform level. This, indeed, goes some way 
towards making what is said unintelligible, except to 
those who can separate its sense from the form and 
manner in which it is put. The points towards which 
one has been working, and the appeals made to the 
feelings and Christian consciousness of the congrega- 
tion, and other main parts of the discourse, ought to 
stand out distinctly from the general level, so that the 
congregation shall at once understand their impor- 
tance, and their relation to the other parts. We 
often, however, hear the same exalted style and the 
same impressive delivery continued throughout, or the 
same sobriety of language and calmness of feeling. 
Both obscure the preacher's meaning by putting the 
comparatively unimportant parts on the same level as 
the most important. The Extemporary Preacher is 
more likely to escape this defect, and it is a very con- 
siderable one, than the reader of written sermons, 
because whatever the former says, he says with a 
clear conception of its bearing on the rest of his dis- 
course; he will therefore in preaching, just as he 
would in conversation, emphasize and bring out what 
he knows ought to be so dealt with : in his case every 
thing comes fresh from his thoughts and feelings. 
Invariable rules can hardly be given on this subject. 
The sense and object in view must in each case point 
out what ought to be made prominent. Sometimes, 



96 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

though this will not often be the case, the first words 
of the sermon, as the Quo usque tandem of Cicero's 
first oration against Catiline, will be of this char- 
acter; and sometimes it will be requisite that the con- 
cluding paragraph should be calm and unimpassioned. 
Any invariable rules on this point are not only im- 
possible, but would be prejudicial if possible, because 
they would lead to uniformity of treatment, which 
ought carefully to be avoided in preaching, so often to 
the same hearers. It would be very tedious and 
wearisome to the congregation to find the preacher 
twice every Sunday emphatic by rule in the same 
parts of his discourse. What he has to attend to is 
to be emphatic, impressive, or solemn whenever the 
sense requires it of him. This implies that he must 
also bear in mind the converse of what has just been 
said, I mean the necessity of shade as well as of light, 
of calmness as well as of energy, of deliberateness as 
well as of rapidity of delivery. And it may not be 
out of place here to remark, that all this applies not 
more to the manner in which God's Word is expounded 
and enforced, than it does to the manner in which it 
is read, and the Word read occupies a large part in 
our Liturgy. 
20. Cor- I ^ill here add a word or two on the 

rect Empha- 
sis comes subject of Emphasis. In reading the 
naturally , . . , , 

in speaking, rrayers httle or no emphasis is required, 
reading. ^^ ^^J i*emarks are intended only for Preach- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHIXG. 97 

ing ; but still even with this restriction, I cannot make 
them without some misgivings, knowing that one can 
hardly make a wrong emphasis, who fully understands 
and feels what he is saying, and that one who does 
not, but yet thinks he ought to emphasize the important 
words, can only be right by accident ; and that, there- 
fore, the emphases in which he will happen to be cor- 
rect will be far outnumbered by those in which he will 
be mistaken ; and often in such a way as to cause a 
smile. But I overrule my misgivings by the considera- 
tion that in Preaching no emphasis is a fault, and 
wrong emphasis a very great fault ; and that in this, 
as in all other particulars of delivery, we ought to 
know what is a fault, and avoid it; and what is correct, 
and endeavor to attain to it. Points of this kind are 
best explained by examples. The late Archbishop 
Whately used to make the remark that Clergymen in 
reading the Ten Commandments, generally emphasize 
the "not" in the second, the third, the sixth, and the 
four following Commandments. This he considered 
wrong, on the ground that the question is not, whether 
the subject-matter of these commandments respectively 
is forbidden, or enjoined. There is no question on 
that point. They are all obviously and necessarily pro- 
hibitions. The question is, what is the thing forbidden ? 
That is what the mind is listening for ; and so that is 
what in each case ought to be made clear and unmis- 
takable by being emphasized. For instance, ^^ making 



98 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

graven images," "taking God's name in vain," 
"murder," "committing adultery," "stealing,'' &c. 
The "nots" are not to be slurred over, but they are 
not the emphatic words. I think one has only to read 
the 18th verse of the xix. ch. of St. Matthew's Gospel 
to be convinced of the justice of this comment. I 
lately heard an elderly Clergyman reading this part 
of the Ante-Communion Service, and throughout he 
emphasized the "Thou" of each Commandment in a 
manner the eifect of which, as it went on accumulating, 
might, in some of the congregation, have disturbed 
the reverential feeling proper to tho occasion. This 
mistake could not have been made designedly, for if 
so, it would have implied that the reader was of opinion 
that all mankind, witk the exception of those to whom 
the Decalogue had been given, were at liberty to 
blaspheme, murder, steal, etc. The occurrence of such 
mistakes in the reading of the Ten Commandments, 
intimates that it is no easy thing for the reader to 
emphasize correctly. My object is to show the im- 
portance of right emphasis. I make no attempt to 
give rules, because correctness in this matter can only 
be secured when the reader is able to realize to his 
mind, at the instant of uttering the words, all their 
meaning, purpose, and connection. This is often 
difficult in itself, and the difficulty is greatly increased 
in the case of the reader, by the fact that what he has 
to do is a dire.ct inversion cf the natural order of 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 99 

things in this matter. The natural order is to have 
the feeling and the meaning in the mind first, and then 
to seek for words hj which utterance may be given 
them ; whereas the reader has the words presented to 
him first, and then has to find what they mean. 

I would give from the Te Deum the short 21 
sentence " We believe that Thou shalt come to be our 
Judge," as an instance of the great facility with 
which false emphases may be made, and of the Protean 
effects, upon what we are reading, of such mistakes. 
We have here, if we omit the conjunction ^'that," and 
regard 'Ho be" as a single word, a sentence of eight 
words, susceptible of eight distinct meanings; each of 
these eight meanings being brought out solely and 
entirely by the position of the emphasis ; for in every 
case the words used would be the same. It may be 
worth while to spend a few moments in observing this 
instance of the transforming effect of emphasis. If 
the first word, "we," be emphasized, it implies that 
the meaning of the declaration is, that others do not 
believe this proposition, but we do. The whole sen- 
tence then becomes an answer to the question, who 
believes it? We do. If ''believe" be emphasized, it 
implies that our state of mind with respect to the 
statement made, is not that of inquiry, or of acqui- 
escence, or of affirmation, etc., but of belief, and the 
sentence becomes a reply to the question. What is our 
state of mind with respect to this proposition? If 



100 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

**Thou" be emphasized, its meaning becomes that we 
believe Jesus Christ to be the coming Judge; and it is 
a reply to the question, Who is to be the coming 
Judge? If "shalt," its meaning is that what we 
affirm is irrevocably fixed, and it becomes a reply to 
the question, Whether we are absolutely certain on 
this point? If "come," it means that Jesus Christ is 
not here now in a visible bodily form, but that He will 
reappear in that form, and it is a reply to the question, 
Will Jesus Christ ever leave heaven, and return again 
to earth? If "to be," its meaning is that His being 
our Judge will not be an accidental, or undesigned re- 
sult of His coming, but its very intended purpose. 
If "our," its meaning is that whoever may be the 
judge of Turks, infidels, and heretics, Jesus Christ is 
He by whom we shall be judged. If "Judge," its 
meaning is that at His second coming. His character 
will be that of a Judge. Now here are eight meanings, 
any one of which, if brought out by emphasis, will 
occupy the mind, and so hinder the perception of the 
other seven. The inference I would draw from this in 
connection with my present subject, is, that it must be 
very difficult indeed for one who reads his sermons 
to make correct emphases. It generally happens, 
which is just what might be expected, that the reader 
of sermons makes little or no use of emphasis; and 
this may be one cause of the complaint of the dulness 
of sermons delivered in this manner. The least inat- 



EXTEMPOKARY PREACHING. 101 

tention to what is being read, or the preoccupation of 
the reader's attention by his MS., which is virtually in- 
attention to his subject, must result in a great many 
neglected, and a great many wrong emphases. In 
conversation, the most illiterate clown is not guilty of 
these faults, because his words are the expression of 
his present thought and feeling. The same remark, 
though not quite to the same extent, may be made of 
the Extemporary Preacher. 



CHAPTER IV. 



SOME PvEMARKS ON THE AiaiS AND SUBJECTS OF SERMONS. 



1. Sub- I NOW come to another part of my 

jects and 

aims of undertaking, that of the subjects and aims 

Modern 

Preaching. of the modern preacher. He will do well 

epochs in ^0 Consider, that though ultimately, and 

^f\h^^*°^^ in their simplest expression, the subjects 

Church. and aims of the preacher must always be 

Each has ^ '' 

its own dis- the same, yet that they bear such a re- 

tinctive . . 

character. lation to the times that he wno does not 
take that relation into account will in a great measure 
in his preaching beat the air. The Christian Church 
has advanced through several epochs, each character- 
ized by very distinct features of its own. We find the 
first age marked by great freedom and variety, as well 
as freshness and depth of feeling and thought. Then 
comes an age of hard doctrinal controversy. In the 
Mediaeval Church we find an honest formalism and 
religious submission to authority. At the time of the 
Reformation men are debating eagerly the question of 
the grounds of acceptance, whether the individual is 
102 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING^ 103 

to depend on the authority of the Church, or on the 
simple Word, and the action of the Divine Spirit on 
his own heart. At the present day the characteristics 
of all former epochs appear to be in conflict. And 
out of this conflict there appears to be rising, coming 
as well from the side of the laity as of the Clergy, a 
sense of the necessity of insisting on our right to use 
"the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free," 
which prompts men to look every where for what is 
good and true, and to approve it wherever found ; and 
which is disposed to make the main feature of religion 
the imitation of Christ; and the main feature of that 
imitation the efibrt, in accordance with His example, 
to do good; and which sets above all precepts that 
one which bids us "be perfect, even as our Father in 
heaven is perfect," that is, to be true, and just, and 
holy, and loving. And so it was with the Old Dis- 
pensation. As its history advanced, new epochs 
opened upon it. Prayer and thanksgiving became a 
higher service than that of sacrifices. The moral law 
was clearly distinguished from and elevated above the 
ceremonial. The value of contrition and repentance 
was revealed. Messianic anticipations became dis- 
tinctly a refuge from the distresses and perplexities of 
the present. It is evident then that the preacher 
ought to address himself to the feelings, the wants, the 
mental movements of his time, not because they are 
necessarily right in every particular, but because there 



104 EXTEMPORARY PREACHmG. 

must be reason for their existence ; and it is his 
business not to ignore or to denounce that reason, but 
to consider it, and to find how much truth there is in 
what is acting widely and deeply on the feelings and 
minds of men. To do otherwise, — to live in a bygone 
world, or in a world of his own, — is to render his 
ministry of the Word useless. 
2. The The remark readily suffgests itself, that 

character of ^ _ J &b J 

the age this attention to the spirit and wants of 

must be at- . 

tended to. the times may be carried too far ; for in- 

The safe- 
guard pro- stance, in an age of controversy one may 

r alnst car- ^® occupied too much with controversies, 
ryingthis ^^^^ acquire too controversial a spirit. 

to an ex- ^ ^ 

treme. But in an age of controversies, contro- 

versy must be attended to : it is the work of the age. 
Or again, in an age vfhen religious formalism and 
submission to authority are in the main alone possible, 
one may exaggerate what are the necessities of the 
age; but if these are the necessities of the age, the 
preacher ought to understand their necessity and 
uphold them. I am supposing a man of good judg- 
ment, and of such an amount of knowledge as may 
be expected in a Minister of the Word, for without 
them he will be liable in any question he may have 
to consider to be carried to faulty extremes. The 
preacher, however, has a safeguard which will never 
fail him, and that safeguard is, that he must ever 
speak in accordance with the Spirit of Christ, remem- 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 105 

bering that, as the Minister of Christ, he stands in 
Christ's place. 

We can see a good reason why the 3. How 

^ '' Christ is all 

Word, althouD-h it had embraced the whole in all in the 

. Word. He 

history of the Jewish Church, should end must be so 
where it does, and should not go on to in- preacher, 
elude the history of the Christian Church subsequent 
to the Apostles' times, notwithstanding its importance. 
As what is contained in the Word was to form the 
subject of the study of God's people, and the subject 
of the preaching of the Ministers of the Word, it was 
necessary to confine it to the history of Him who is 
the Author and Finisher of our Faith, — the Way, 
the Truth, and the Life. The Messianic anticipations 
of the Old Testament, in which that Dispensation 
issues, prepare the way for Him. We then have the 
picture of His life, and the account of what He 
taught. Then how He was preached by the Apostles, 
and His kingdom established. He therefore is the 
subject of the entire Word. It is not merely that 
His figure stands forth from it, but that He is the 
centre to which every thing it contains more or less 
directly converges. This could not have been so 
much the case had the Word been made to include the 
subsequent history of the Church. In that subse- 
quent history, man, with his passions, and follies, and 
mistakes, is generally more prominent than God. But 
now the preacher of the Word can hardly misunder- 



106 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

stand his subject ; or, if he strays from it, he must do 
so "wittingly. 

^•}}^ As the Word, then, now stands, pre- 

would be ^ ^ 

mischiev- senting to the preacher's view Jesus 

ous, if it 

were pos- Christ and Him only, he must, like the 
vive'aby- Apostle Paul, be determined in a certain 
gone epoc . g^j^gg ^q know Him only. But there will 
be some among both preachers and hearers who will 
see the great central truths of religion through the 
light of subsequent portions of the Church's history; 
for the great epochs of its history do not appear to 
come utterly to an end, but as it were to live on in the 
minds and hearts of some here and some there, 
almost as if all that had taken place since had 
taught them nothing : for them subsequent history 
appears to have no existence. So it is in an especial 
manner with the Mediaeval epoch, which in many 
leading particulars teaches lessons very different from 
those taught us by the first ages of the Church. Still 
though the lessons taught by these two ages were so 
widely different as to be almost contradictory of each 
other, yet the ideas and practices of each were rela- 
tively to their own times equally wise and equally 
true. Each presents to us truths which after-times 
ought not to lose sight of, and which may be profitably 
made use of in other times as occasions may arise, 
but which it must be futile and mischievous to attempt 
to reproduce again in their complete form ; for having 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 107 

once been displaced by the growth of religious ideas 
and practices, they can never again possess the whole 
field: nor is it desirable that they should. For in- 
stance, how suited to the times, and therefore how 
powerful an instrument for subduing and keeping in 
subjection men's minds, was the imposing ritual of 
the Mediaeval Church, aided by the ministering arts 
of Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and Music. How 
invaluable also for those times was the principle of 
submission to ecclesiastical authority. And of what 
great advantage was it that the Church was able to 
organize society for the work of society wherever the 
motive or aim of the work was religious, as in founding 
and maintaining asylums to which in those rough and 
troublous times the weak, and those weary of the 
world might retire ; and in being the great almoner 
of society ; and in providing a sufScient number of 
churches and Clergy for the comforting and instruction 
of the people. The Mediaeval Church teaches us that 
these things were of great value in those times, and 
so suggests the probability of their being of value, 
with certain qualifications and adaptations, under the 
changed circumstances of other times. But while we 
admit this, we must not forget that the Primitive 
Church grew and prospered under far more arduous 
circumstances, without a settled ritual ; without the 
ministering aid of Art; without the subjection of 
society to ecclesiastical authority; and without the 



108 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

power of organizing society for religious purposes. 
It worked with other and very different instruments ; 
and of these the same may be said as of the instru- 
ments used by the Mediseval Church, that they were 
the best adapted to their own times; and that with 
those qualifications, which are necessary if they are 
applied usefully to altered circumstances, they have 
a value for all times. And so we might go on through 
all the epochs of the Church's history. Absolutely 
then those preachers are wrong who hold up the prac- 
tices and ideas of any bygone epoch as if they ought 
to rule the present. Relatively, however, such 
preachers may be doing a good work, for they are the 
counterpoise to those who ignore, or misunderstand, 
or ignorantly decry, the practices and ideas of the 
past. He alone in this respect will be doing his work 
properly who shall claim for the Church of to-day the 
same liberty of action which the Church has used in 
all anterior epochs; and -which, however strenuously 
resistea, must in every epoch be established eventually ; 
and who, because he understands the spirit of the an- 
terior epochs of the Church's history, and their neces- 
sary connection, will, instead of vainly endeavoring 
to recall men to what has passed away, together with 
the reason of its existence, confine himself to the ad- 
vocacy only of what may still be of use in the 
ideas and practices of the past. To contend for what 
has become obsolete, because unsuitable to the wants 



EXTEMPORAKY PREACHING. 109 

and circumstances of the times, cannot be a means for 
conveying to men's minds a knowledge of Christ, or 
of extending His kingdom : it can only obscure the 
former and limit the latter. It makes men conscious 
that there is an oppugnance between Him as He is 
preached to them and what they know, and feel, and 
desire. Where this is the case, the fault probably is 
in the preacher. Christ is for all times, as much for 
the modern as for the Mediaeval or the ancient world. 
Indeed, the modern preacher has an advantage over 
those of previous ages, inasmuch as he has a more ex- 
tensive armory of means to choose from ; only let him 
not endeavor to make use of weapons unsuited to the 
existing condition of the fight. 

A mistake to which attention may now 5- Ser- 
mons must 
be directed is that into which preachers not be re- 

. garded as 

fall when they make their sermons too Confessions 
theological. There are some whose dis- 
courses consist of dogmatic statements, and again of 
dogmatic statements perpetually reiterated. Chris- 
tian doctrine is not to be lost sight of in the pulpit, 
and on many occasions it must be the direct object of 
the preacher to enunciate and establish it; but speak- 
ing generally this is not his object. His object is 
precisely that of the prophets of old, and of the Great 
Master Himself. Let him take the Bible for his 
guide. His object is to exhort, to warn, to comfort, 
to instruct, and to do all these on Christian grounds, 
10 



110 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

We sometimes hear it affirmed, that a sermon ought 
not to be regarded as the address of a Christian 
preacher to a Christian congregation unless the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, and also the work of the Second 
and Third Person of the Trinity in the redemption of 
man, can be readily collected from its statements. 
Such opinions as these indicate very little knowledge 
either of the principles of composition or of the hu- 
man mind. The principles of composition require 
that each sermon should have its own subject, and 
that that subject should be set forth distinctly. It 
should stand out to the mind, as a well-grown tree 
does to the eye, clearly defined, with its own stem and 
its own system of branches ; but these people would 
smother all their trees, as nature sometimes docs in 
the tropical forest, with the same set of overwhelming 
creepers. We must remember that what the congre- 
gation have to judge of is not a single sermon, but a 
long series of sermons, — to be precise, two sermons 
preached each Sunday by the same person through 
many years ; and we must consider what would be the 
effect of the distinctive doctrines of our religion being 
made a more or less prominent feature in every one of 
these hundreds of sermons. There is no one but can 
tell what the effect of it would be upon his own mind. 
It would be neither attractive nor edifying. Let the 
preacher, then, recollect, that Confessions of Faith are 
one thing, and that sermons are another. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. IH 

But, however, on the other hand, the 6. Nor, on 

the other 

preacher must take care lest, while avoid- hand, as 

mere 

ing the mistake of being too doctrinal, he Bridgewater 
fall into the opposite mistake. Sermons nioi^al^^^^' °^' 
cease to be sermons as soon as thej lose ^-^says. 
sight of the Faith. I*Tothing can be more frigid and 
soulless, or produce a more disagreeable sense of dis- 
cord, than the discourses of those who adopt the 
moral essay and Bridgewater Treatise style of preach- 
ing. The preacher must preach the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ ; not only because there is no other subject so 
deeply and enduringly interesting to man, but because 
there is no other subject on which he is commissioned 
to speak. Pulpits are not, and could not be, main- 
tained for any other purpose. When Napoleon I. was 
told that it was proposed, in arranging the adminis- 
tration of the Neapolitan kingdom, to retain, though 
on a greatly reduced scale, a Church establishment, 
on the ground of its utility to literature, he replied, 
with the sagacity which characterized all his legisla- 
tive ideas, that that was not a ground upon which any 
Church establishment, however small, could be main- 
tained; that there was but one ground upon which it 
could be maintained, which was its utility as an in- 
strument of religious consolation and instruction. 
The preacher will have to consider what 7. How 

the preach- 

position he will take up in reference to er must re- 
the increased scientific knowledge, and creased^sci-" 



112 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

entific the more profound Biblical and historical 

knowledge 

and the his- criticism of the present daj. Many ig- 

torical and i t mi • 

Biblical nore these matters altogether. This may 

criticism of i n • i • i •.! . 

the present ^^ ^^^^ ^^ some rural parishes without any 
^^' great hurt to the congregation, though 

never without some damage to the mind of the 
preacher himself; for these are matters with which 
he ought to be acquainted, and upon which he ought 
to have arrived at the best conclusions his opportuni- 
ties admit of. The question, however, is full of diffi- 
culty. Neither scientific nor critical knowledge is 
within every body's reach. Speaking for myself, I 
have no fear that the modern advances of science, and 
the wider spread of scientific knowledge, will weaken 
men's faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There was 
a time when it was supposed, and perhaps even with 
more reason than at present, that the then recent dis- 
covery of the laws which regulate the solar system, 
and the revelations made by the telescope, must have 
this effect. It was demonstrated that this earth was 
not the centre either of the sidereal or of the solar 
system ; and it appeared no longer possible to localize 
either the heaven above or the hell beneath the earth. 
But I am not aware that any one now finds that his 
astronomical knowledge indisposes him to Christian 
belief. With respect to the historical and Biblical 
criticism of the present day, the result probably will 
be that it will give us more distinct ideas than we now 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 113 

possess with respect to the religious history and pro- 
gress of mankind, which is a very different thing from 
overthrowinor religion. Its concern with the Sacred 
Text is to ascertain its meaning, and to offer us an 
interpretation of it in harmony with the existing state 
of knowledge. These interpretations can hardly be 
hostile to that progressive revelation of Himself which 
God has ever been making, through patriarchs and 
prophets ; and then through Jesus Christ ; and with 
the enlargement of our knowledge may expand, but 
cannot diminish. At all events, however, there are 
two remarks which may be made on this subject with 
which every body will agree, and which cover some 
portion of the ground which the question opens up to 
us. One of these remarks is, that it will very much 
weaken the influence of the pulpit if it be found to 
have placed itself in unreasoning antagonism to the 
science and the criticism of the day ; and the other is 
a warning against the opposite course, that of being 
over eager to accept as ascertained and established 
facts matters which have not yet advanced beyond the 
stage of scientific or critical conjecture. 
8. He The modern preacher will do well to 

must con- 
sider the consider how greatly the relation of the 
change in _ ^ 

the relation intelligence of congregations to that of 
telligence preachers differs at the present day from 
t e con- -yyiiat it was in former times. In some 

gregation to 

that of the cascs this difference is so irreat that it 

preacher. ^ 

10^- 



114 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

amounts to a partial inversion. There were times 
wlien the Clergy alone were educated. Of those 
times the J were the natural and undisputed intel- 
lectual leaders. But now all the upper classes are 
similarly and equally educated ; and, indeed, education 
has been extended even to the lowest classes of 
society. And moreover, as the Clergy must devote a 
large portion of their time to parochial work, there 
are many of the laity who are able to follow up in- 
tellectual pursuits far more thoroughly than is possible 
for the Clergy. 

9. Also Simultaneously also with this great 

the enlarge- 

ment of the alteration in the intellectual position of 

means of , , . i i ^^ i ^ 

instruction, the laity towards the Clergy, there has 
been brought about an equally great dif- 
ference between the relation which the modern pulpit 
bears to the now existing means of instruction, and 
that which the Mediaeval pulpit bore to what were the 
means of those days. It almost might be said, that in 
those times the pulpit stood alone as the only means 
of instruction; but in these days the press has become 
far more widely used, and far more powerful than the 
pulpit. These are facts which are most material to 
any profitable consideration on the subject of 
preaching. 

10. These j^t all events, they at once oblige us to 

changes 

suggest the acknowledge that there may be some 

justice of . , . , 1 . 

some of the justice in the reiterated complaints we 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 115 

hear from the more hidily-cultivated por- common 

° "^ complaints 

tion of the laity of the dulness and un- against 

T (* 1 sermons. 

profitableness of the generality of modern 
sermons. Their attainments in knowledge, and the 
thought they have bestowed on that knowledge, are in 
advance of the knowledge and thought which perhaps 
the majority of modern sermons exhibit. If this be 
so, and few I believe are disposed to dispute it, there 
can be but one way of meeting the complaint, and 
that is by our paying more attention to preaching ; by 
which I mean, that we must endeavor to attain to 
fuller and wider knowledge of the subjects upon which 
we have to speak, and to a more effective and better 
way of saying what we have to say. In other words, 
what we have to do is, I think, what it is the ob- 
ject of this little work to recommend. The know- 
ledge and practice I am speaking of as requisite, can- 
not, I know, be secured without many years of study; 
but this is not more than men give in every profession 
and calling to what is to be the work of their lives. 
It may be useful to take another view .-^J* ^^°^^ 

•^ of diflFerent 

of the objects and aims of preaching, kinds of 

preachers. 

that in which they will present themselves Those who 

when we consider them as they appear in strictly 

the work of different kinds of preachers. [^TiSn. 

For instance, some aim distinctlv and pri- Those who 

•^ ^ take wider 

marily at instruction. This instruction views. 
may be of two kinds. It may be confined to theology 



116 EXTEMPORARY PREACHmG. 

simply, or it may embrace also history and moral 
science, and indeed almost all kinds of knowledge, 
regarding theology as a kind of summa pJiilosopJda, 
which harmonizes and gives its proper place and 
highest aim to all we know. Those who aim chiefly 
at what is generally understood by strictly theological 
instruction, undertake a very difficult task, for they 
are speaking upon what all the congregation, in its 
leading facts and mother-ideas, are already acquainted 
with, and which cannot be spoken upon well and in- 
terestingly, and so as really to instruct, without a 
complete knowledge of the subject and much logical 
acumen. What we find however to be the fact is, that 
very many of those who aim in their sermons at 
merely doctrinal instruction seldom go beyond the 
quotation of texts, which is a very dry way of dealing 
with the subjects they handle, and, as Jeremy Taylor 
observes, a very inconclusive way. Those who take 
the other and wider view of the instruction sermons 
may be made to convey, propose to themselves a very 
high aim indeed, but one which is certain to be 
attended with lamentable and ludicrous failures, unless 
the preacher be provided with very extensive learning 
and with very sound judgment. 
12. Those ^ second description of preachers make 

who aim at 

awakening it their object to awakon and feed reli- 

religious x • i • i 

emotion. gious emotion. It IS obvious that very 

little knowledge is required for this purpose. A man 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 117 

who is very ignorant of books may still, if lie feels 
those emotions himself, be able to communicate them 
to others. This is the aim of a large proportion 
of those whom we call popular preachers. These 
preachers are very serviceable to large classes of the 
community. For it has always hitherto been the case 
(and we may suppose that it will continue to be so), 
that the great majority of mankind, being engaged 
throughout their lives in daily business and daily toil, 
have been so unlearned that more could be effected 
by awakening their religious feelings than by endeav- 
oring to convey to them religious instruction. But 
the very qualification which makes these preachers 
useful, the fact of their preaching being chiefly emo- 
tional, is the reason why we so rarely find them pos- 
sessing much weight in the world of intellect. It is a 
rare thing to find those who are able to teach well, 
able also to move the feelings well; and so, too, vice 
versed : in the Ministry, however, of the Word there is 
a place for each. 

A third class, that was very numerous 13. Those 

who regard 

in the last generation, but is now very sermons as 

.... a depart- 

much on the wane, make it their aim to ment of the 

give pleasure to critical ears by the pro- ^^^^ 
priety of their ideas, language, and style. They 
hardly regard a sermon as any thing more than a lit- 
erary composition. Sermons with them are a depart- 
ment of the Belles Lettres. Bishop Porteus's sermons 



118 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

and a large portion of Bishop Heber's were of this 
kind. But nothing more need be said of this class of 
preachers, as the growing earnestness of religious feel- 
ing is rapidly extinguishing them. 
14. Those A fourth class aim at producing a kind 

who dis- ^ ^ . 

parage ser- of quietism — I had almost said, no effect 
at all — bj their preaching. They find the 
other parts of the ritual more productive than the ser- 
mon of those emotions they themselves delight in; and 
Bome of the members of their congregations are soon 
brought to the same way of thinking and feeling ; they 
therefore discountenance and disparage any kind of 
preaching that is accompanied with excitement, or al- 
most with interest. We sometimes hear them even 
objecting to preaching altogether. It would not be 
correct to say that they regard the sermon from the 
ritualist's point of view, because the sermon is a part 
of the ritual; nor would it be right to say that they 
are altogether in the wrong, for many sermons pro- 
duce what cannot be considered as a religious effect 
upon the minds of those who hear them: many con- 
troversial sermons, and many that are not controver- 
sial, are of this kind. The deep and calm feelings too 
which these preachers aim at cultivating, though not 
all adapted to, or attainable by the mass of mankind, 
are true and beautiful, and ought to be exhibited to 
the world, but the inert, the ignorant, and the con* 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHIXG. 119 

tentedlj sinful, will never be awakened by a refined 
quietism. 

These are the different kinds of preacb- 15. Those 

who regard 

ers who by their energy and talents are sermons as 
brought into prominence. There are, the service. 
however, two other classes, each of which regard^Ihem 
is probably more numerous than all the ff ^ P^^J ^^ 
preceding four combined. First, those 
who have no definite aim in their preaching, merely 
regarding the sermon as a part of the service they 
have to perform; and, secondly, those who without 
any great amount of learning, or the possession of 
any popular talent, endeavor to set the Gospel before 
the souls which have been entrusted to their spiritual 
oversight. They feel their responsibility, and endea- 
vor to discharge their duty faithfully. It is the at- 
tention of this class, particularly of the younger por- 
tion of it, that I am desirous of obtaining for the sug- 
gestions of these pages. I wish them to consider 
whether it is not within their reach to make their 
preaching a far more effective instrument for good 
than they have hitherto found it, by devoting to it 
that amount of time, study, and labor, without which 
nothing very great, or very good, can be attained in 
any department of human exertion. 



CHAPTER Y. 



SOME KEMAEKS ON THE PLACE ASSIGNED TO PEEACHING IN 
THE WOED OF GOD, AND IN OTJE SEEVICE. 



1. The I NOW propose to consider the way iu 

place as- 

signed to "vvhich the Word itself speaks of this in- 

preacbing 

in the Word, strument for its own propagation, exposi- 
OldDis- tion, enforcement and adaptation to the 

pensation. varying circumstances of the times. Un- 
der the Old Dispensation the prophetical office, that 
now held by the properly-qualified Minister of the 
Word, was, we may almost say, the only means used 
for maintaining and advancing the knowledge of God. 
In times as rude and unsettled as those were, the reli- 
gious and moral forces of society are always likely to 
organize themselves for the protection of society. At 
such epochs this organization will stand forth more 
prominently than at others. It was so again in the 
Middle Ages. And it will also happen that whatever 
is done by the organization of these forces of society 
will seem to those who, like ourselves, regard the his- 
tory from a distance, and with the aid of only very brief 
120 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 121 

and imperfect records, very mucli as if it were the 
work of the leaders only. But it is obvious that, to 
have enabled them to carry out the bold and difficult 
tasks in which we frequently find them engaged, the 
sympathy and support of considerable numbers were 
requisite. And as respects their teaching, it must be 
equally obvious that unless the truths and sentiments 
they enunciated had been previously more or less dis- 
tinctly apprehended by others, what they might have 
said would have fallen to the ground. The position 
therefore in which the Hebrew prophet stood towards 
his own times, was not that of complete difference 
from, or opposition to the religious thought and feeling 
of those around him, but that he saw more clearly, 
and was able to enunciate more forcibly than others 
what was at work in many minds besides his OAvn. 
The Spirit of God, which guides to a knowledge of 
the truth, and supplies the boldness to say and to do 
what is required for its maintenance, was in him in 
greater measure than in others. Because he saw 
distinctly truths which others had seen, but seen less 
distinctly, or perhaps which others were only prepared 
to see, he became to them the messenger of God to 
proclaim these truths to them. Had it been other- 
wise, what he enounced would have fared as good 
seed fares when it falls upon dry and naked rock. Be 
this, however, as it may, just what we are told of 
David, as a prophet, that " the Holy Ghost spake by 
11 



122 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

his moutli," the father of the Baptist declares was 
true of ''all the prophets which had been since the 
world began." They were raised up in long succession, 
through God's providence, to proclaim by preaching 
each advance to a purer and higher morality, and to a 
more spiritual religion, and to awaken and keep alive 
the assurance of the ultimate triumph of good over 
evil, of right, of mercy, and of truth. Each pro- 
gressive revelation of God's Holy Spirit, and every 
application of previously secured truths and principles 
to the wants of the times, was made through this in- 
strumentality. We have no intimation of any other 
way in vfhich these things were or could have been 
done. 

2. Then J^^t to pass from the old Dispensation 

in the New. 

to the New. Here it is that we behold 

the prophetical office exalted to its highest dignity, 
and exercised on the widest scale. The Son of Man 
has now taken that office on Himself. The Word has 
become flesh, and is shining as the Light of the world ; 
and preaching, we find, is the only instrument He 
uses for disseminating the Light. The preacher and 
the prophet in Him are synonymous. "He went 
through every village and city preaching the glad 
tidings of the kingdom of God." All His parables, 
and discourses, and teaching of every kind, w^ere de- 
livered as spoken words, that is to say, were preached. 
It had been in this way that he who was 'Hhe prophet 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 123 

of the Highest" had prepared the way for Him: "In 
those days came John the Baptist preaching." And 
after a time we find the Great Preacher sending forth 
the twelve to preach the kingdom of God. And then 
He appoints other seventy also, and sends them two 
and two before His face into every city and place 
whither He Himself would come, to preach. The 
miracles He empowered them to do were to support 
their preaching. And after the Ascension of their 
Divine Instructor, His disciples go forth to preach 
His Gospel in all the world, as they had been com- 
manded; miracles again being made subsidiary to 
preaching; for "they went forth and preached every 
where, the Lord working with them, and confirming 
the word with signs following." The object of the 
great miracle on the day of Pentecost, as described 
in anticipation by the Lord Himself; and as shown 
by the nature of the powers it conferred, for it gave 
knowledge and words; and as seen by its efi'ects; was 
to enable those who were acted on by it to preach: 
and so it happened, not accidentally, that the first 
propagation of the Gospel was the direct and imme- 
diate result of preaching. And this was the instru- 
ment, as I have already had occasion to notice, by 
which Paul and his brother- Apostles established the 
Gospel in the world. ^' God," he says, "was pleased 
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that 
believe." Again he says, in writing to Titus, "God 



124 BXTEMPOBAKY PREACHING. ' 

in due time manifested His Word through preaching." 
And in speaking of himself to Timothy he says not 
only that he had been appointed "an Apostle and a 
teacher of the Gentiles," but also, and he puts it 
first, as being foremost in his thoughts, '' a preacher " 
of the Gospel, though indeed each of the three titles 
to a great extent implies the other two. In his Epis- 
tle to the Romans he greatly magnifies and insists on 
the necessity of the office : " How shall they call on 
Him on whom they have not believed? and how shall 
they believe on Him of whom they have not heard ? 
and how shall they hear without a preacher ?" sup- 
porting what he says by a reference to the prophet 
Isaiah : " How beautiful are the feet of those who 
preach the Gospel of peace, and bring the glad tidings 
of good things !" So was the Gospel established in 
the world by preaching. And by this same means 
was it, as I have shown elsewhere, maintained and 
extended. And whenever the love men had for it was 
languishing and dying away, this was the instrument 
used for its revival. Every Minister of the Word 
shouM consider the exhortation which the great 
preacher Paul urged upon his brother-preacher 
Timothy : I charge thee therefore before God and 
the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the quick and 
dead at His appearing in His kingdom ; preach 
the Word ; be instant in season and out of season ; 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 125 

reprove, rebuke, exhort mih all long-suffering and 
doctrine. 

Sucli is the Tvaj in -which preaching is set before us 
in the Word of God. 

In the preceding paragraphs I have been ^- Preach- 
using the words Preacher and Prophet, and synony- 

T-. , . , . mous ivith 

Preaching and Prophesying, as nearly propliet. 
synonymous. And so for our present purpose they 
may be regarded. The prophets were preachers of 
the Word of the Lord ; God spake by their mouths. 
In this sense the Apostles were prophets, and Jesus 
Christ is the Head of the prophetic order. And so 
in His Church every preacher who speaks in con- 
formity to the will of God, and who advances, or even 
maintains among men the knowledge of God, which 
includes the duty of man, belongs to the same order 
as the prophets of old. "For the prophecy came not 
in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
The remark is obvious, that probably 4. The 

want of 

the proportion of the community that is preachers 

, , , . , . . still, and 

able to read is greater now than it was m always will 
the days when the Apostle to the Gentiles ^' ^^^^** 
went forth to preach the Gospel to the nations on the 
northern shores of the Mediterranean. But no great 
weight need be attached to this remark, although we 
add to it that the facilities for reading have increased 
since the Apostle's time in a still greater degree even 

11* 



126 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

than the proportion of readers; because amongst our- 
selves the absolute number of those who require the 
aid of the preacher is so great that we are unable to 
supply the want. The want is great and pressing in 
every part of the country. In respect of this matter 
we cannot talk of some towns or some neighborhoods 
being more enlightened than others, for the difference 
between the most and the least enlightened is so in- 
considerable as to make scarcely any practical differ- 
ence. Can we put our finger on any place, and say, 
*'The preacher is not needed here; his labors may be 
transferred elsewhere ?" Indeed the probability seems 
to be that the preacher will always be needed even by 
the most cultivated classes, for wherever religious 
feeling exists the preacher satisfies a desire which is 
felt by most of us. Religion has been regarded by 
statesmen and historians as the strongest of all bonds 
of union. And so it is; it binds nations, and races, 
and sects together in a manner which nothing else can. 
And it has this effect because the religious sentiment, 
being in its highest form and expression Christian 
love, in whatever degree it may exist, in the same de- 
gree will it crave for sympathy, for union and com- 
munion of feeling; and for a large assembly to be 
consciously moved in common by the thoughts and 
feelings of one who preaches the Word of God with 
truth and power, is a profitable as well as a delightful 
way of satisfying this longing of the spirit. 



EXTEMPOHARY PREACHING. 127 

With the facts and thoughts to which 5. Answer 

to the dis- 

attention has just been directed, I would paraging 

■ . , , remark, that 

place m contrast the attempts now made people do 

so frequently to disparage Preaching, ^hai?ch t°o 

Sometimes this is done by the remark ^®'^^.®®^\ , 

•^ mons, but to 

" That people come to church to pray, pray. 
and not to hear sermons." The answer to this is, 
"That it is not true: people come to church both to 
pray and to hear sermons." Sometimes, however, 
the objection does not go further than an insinuation 
of an inferiority in Preaching to Praying. There is 
an ambiguity in this way of putting the objection, and 
it will be almost an answer to it to state it in such a 
manner as to remove the ambiguity. There cannot 
properly be any comparison between Preaching and 
Praying, because they are not the acts, which the ob- 
jection would require them to be, of the same person. 
The one is the act of the Minister, and the other the 
act of the congregation. The comparison then must 
be between the advantage of listening to sermons and 
the advantage of praying. The method of the argu- 
ment is to aiErm that the benefits of the latter greatly 
preponderate over the benefits of the former, and to 
put this statement in such a way as to insinuate that 
it is safe and profound to sneer at and depreciate 
preaching as a matter of little consequence. There 
is no weight at all in this argument. First, benefit is 
a word of relative significance. There may be some 



128 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

to whom, for satisfactory or for unsatisfactory rea- 
sons, that may be of little benefit which will be of 
much benefit to many. Far the greater part of the 
population of this country, some even perhaps of the 
educated classes, may still be in need of being taught 
not only how to pray aright, but to pray at all in the 
proper sense of the word praying. As yet, to them 
the benefit of the opportunity of praying, of which 
they cannot or do not avail themselves, is not of so 
much value as the opportunity of hearing sermons, 
which may lead them to prayer. It is also a sufficient 
reply to the objection to point out the fact that there 
are two kinds of sermons, good sermons, by which all 
may be benefited, and bad sermons, from which very 
little good can result to any one ; the carelessness, 
ignorance, and tediousness of which really often do 
much harm. The objection includes both kinds, 
whereas it cannot apply to the former, that is to say, 
to what all sermons ought more or less to be. 
6. And Another and somewhat similar way of 

that hear- 
ing ser- attempting to depreciate preaching is to 

mons is ' i i . . . ^ . 

inferior to affirm that hearing sermons is inferior to 

piaying. praying, because preaching is a means 

used for bringing men to praying ; and that the end 
must be greater than the means. The weight, how- 
ever, of this objection is not greater than the weight 
of the one we have just disposed of. It is possible 
that that which is the means for attaining several 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 129 

great ends may, in regarding a whole system, be as 
important a part of that system as any one of those 
ends taken separately. Preaching has ever been the 
chief means for bringing men to a knowledge of God 
and of duty, and for maintaining and advancing reli- 
gious culture. It cannot therefore be depreciated by 
the fact that in a certain sense it stands to prayer in 
the relation of a means to an end. This is not a com- 
plete account, it is a very partial one indeed, of what 
preaching is. The objector (though what has just 
been said is a sufficient answer) may also be taken on 
his own ground. Why should the fact that preaching 
is, among its other uses, ii means to prayer, be a rea- 
son for thinking lightly of preaching, any more than 
the fact that preaching is a means to holiness be re- 
garded as a reason for thinking lightly of praying? 
He cannot depreciate preaching in this way in favor 
of praying, because we have only to advance a single 
step, and then by parity of reason prayer itself may 
be depreciated. The effect, however, ought to be the 
very opposite; for having discovered that prayer is 
a means to holiness, our conclusion ought to be not 
to neglect prayer, but to be instant in prayer. In 
proportion to the greatness and importance of the end 
is the value of the proper means for attaining that 
end; and preaching, we must remember, is much 
more than a means for bringing men to pray. 



130 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

7. Acaus3 The truth is that these objections, just 

for these 

objections. like every thing else in the world, have a 
cause ; and with some that cause is, that the degree 
of freedom and of mental stir which accompanies 
preaching does not suit the ecclesiastical system and 
aims, or the sentiments of the objectors; while with 
others it is incompatible with that decent conforming 
worldliness which in so many results from the en- 
deavor to serve both God and Mammon. These two 
classes of men dislike earnest preaching. It is too much 
of an appeal to the heart and intellect. It is too direct 
a challenge to thought and inquiry. It awakens. It 
disturbs. It individualizes both the hearer and the 
preacher, by calling into activity religious consciousness 
and the sense of duty in each. Those worldly-minded 
persons whose religion consists very much in outward 
reverence find it disagreeable to be addressed in this 
way. Such preaching and the effects it produces are also 
at variance with the feelings of those who discharge 
among us the necessary, or at all events, the useful part 
of maintaining the importance of the Church's ritual — 
notwithstanding the fact that the sermon they depre- 
ciate is a part of the ritual. I am speaking of what we 
find is the general feeling among such persons on this 
subject. They care little about preaching. They 
seem to care more even for the mere accessories of the 
service, such as the splendor and decorations of the 
sacred building, and the excellency of the music. 



EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 131 

There is nothing annoying or condemnatory intended 

by those observations, for so long as a powerful party • 

in the Church neglect the ritual, and give too much 

prominency to the sermon in the service, the position 

such objectors take up is useful, though very liable to 

be carried in themselves to a faulty extreme. 

And here I take the opportunity for 8- Proper 
^^ "^ length of 

offering the suggestion that the character sermons. 

"Rod pffppf^ 

and structure of our Liturgy, as now of making 
used, seem to indicate the propriety of ^^^^ 
not allowing our remarks to exceed over the half-hour 
the general practice of the Clergy, and the general 
opinion of the Laity on the subject assigned to them. 
In the Morning Service about this space of time is 
occupied by the Prayers, and as much more by the 
readino; of the Word. In the Eveninor Service the 
time occupied by each of these is somewhat less. To 
preach, therefore, for an hour, or three quarters of an 
hour, appears to be both a Psychological and a Litur- 
gical mistake. Because even if any considerable 
portion of the congregation had the power of attention 
requisite for so long a sermon — which however they 
have not — still so long an effort of attention given to 
the sermon, would, by comparison dwarf the effect of 
the previous reading of the Word, and of the Prayers. 
Much of the effect of the Word read and of the 
Prayers must be obliterated by the great strain laid 
on the mind by a sermon of an hour's length. W^ 



132 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

ought to take care that neither the devotional, nor 
the instructional part of the Service should detract 
from the effect of the other, but that each should as 
far as possible aid the other; and one way of providing 
for this is to give to each about the same space of 
time. In considering the point before us we may 
regard the reading of the Word as participating in 
both the above-mentioned characters, for it both 
conveys instruction, and excites devotion. Another 
concomitant of long sermons is that somehow or other, 
either from the accumulating effects of the fact just 
noticed, or because the Preacher of long sermons 
appears himself to take more interest in his sermons 
than in the other parts of the service, or from these 
reasons combined, the congregation, that is, those who 
are brought to like the practice, and the tone of mind 
created by it, come to think more of the sermon than 
of the other parts of the service, although those other 
parts be Prayer and Praise, and the hearing of God's 
Word read. Among such congregations a want of 
right understanding of what is meant by Public Wor- 
ship is often betrayed by such questions as, " Who 
are we to hear to-day" and "Who preaches at such 
or such a Church?" The vulgar expression of 
"sitting under such or such a Minister" is doubly 
offensive, because it implies the same state of mind on 
this point — the feeling not that Preaching is a great 
thing, but tha.t it is the great thing ; and that every other 
part of the service is of very subordinate interest. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 133 

It ought to be a very leading object ?- Modern 
■with us all to make the Church attractive; making the 

Church 

SO attractive, if possible, as that "all attractive, 
people should flow to it." Of late we have seen 
great efforts made in different quarters with this view. 
One party in the Church evidently rests its main hopes 
on Preaching. Another party of very opposite sen- 
timents, while to a great extent discouraging preach- 
ing, makes much of the devotional part of the ser- 
vice ; some among them carrying this principle to so 
unreasonable an extreme that they appear to be 
thinking more even of the material accessories to de- 
votion than of the service itself. Earnestness, how- 
ever, of any kind will always be attractive to many 
minds, and there are truths earnestly held by each of 
these parties that have in themselves ever been 
attractive ; but it cannot be said of either of them, 
that they have rendered the Church as attractive to 
the great body of the people, either among the edu- 
cated or uneducated classes, as those desire who wish 
well to the cause of religion. 

We may take it for granted that the 10. The 

^ ^ fault not in 

reason of this failure is not in Christ- human na- 
ture, which, 
lamty; nor, notwithstandmg what many as all history 

1 1 1 1 1, 1 •! 1 shows, has 

preachers and would-be philosophers may ^ strong 
say, in human nature. The fault is not ^"'fj^f ^^^ 

*' ^ united wor- 

in the latter, because there is no senti- ship. 



12 



134 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

ment of our common human nature so general as, I 
•will not say tiie religious sentiment, but I will speak 
of a very definite manifestation of that sentiment, and 
which bears directly on the point now before us, I 
mean that particular manifestation of it which exhib- 
its itself in the manner in which in all ages, and 
among all races of men, and under all forms of civili- 
zation and of religion, we find men dedicating certain 
places and buildings to religious services, and uniting 
together for the purpose of public worship. Wherever 
we may go over the surface of the earth, if we are 
among men who are able to raise such structures, we 
find temples thronged with worshippers drawn toge- 
ther by the desire of gratifying their religious senti- 
ments. There is really ^no feeling or practice about 
which there is so striking a concurrence, so general 
a unanimity. It would be a mistake to suppose that 
our churches are a result, or a characteristic of our 
Christianity. There has scarcely ever been a city in 
the world in which the grandest, costliest, and most 
conspicuous structures were not dedicated to the ser- 
vice of religion. It has been so in every quarter of 
the globe. Approach any city in India, in Turkey, 
or in China, and that which will first attract your eye, 
soaring above and appearing to dominate over all the 
other works of men's hands, will be, just as in the case 
of this Christian land, the sacred buildings of the 
place — temples, mosques, pagodas. And when some 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 135 

old form of civilization has passed away, all that ap- 
pears to remain of it standing before our eyes, as a 
visible memorial of what has been, are the massive re- 
mains of its temples. Here and there you may find 
the mouldering fragments of some secular building, 
but what you find every where, as if kept up by an 
invisible hand, for the purpose of witnessing to us of 
the religious sentiments of past generation of men, 
are the temples. It is so with the wonderful rock 
temples of India, with the massive structures raised 
by the myriad-handed devotion of the Egypt of the 
Pharaohs, with the glorious remains that still rise 
above the sandy wastes of the Syrian desert, the rock 
of Athens, and the deserted fields of Psestum, and 
even with the rudely grand monuments of ancient 
Mexico, and of our own Stonehenge. A sentiment 
then which has ever and every where acted with such 
surprising uniformity, and produced such great re- 
sults, and for the gratification of which men have al- 
ways been so lavish of thought and labor, can have 
nothing unreal or artificial about it. It cannot be 
due to any accidental causes. It acts with the force 
of a never-failing instinct implanted in the very 
depths of our nature by the hand of our Creator. 
However false, foolish, corrupt, and corrupting, 
creeds may have been, this sentiment has never died 
out: indeed, it has scarcely ever been weakened. God 
never left us without this witness of Himself, and 



136 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

of our relation to Him. It is under the influence of 
this sentiment that Christian churches have been 
built, and that Christian congregations assemble in 
them. We do these things in obedience to the desire 
our Maker has implanted in our common human na- 
ture to meet Him unitedly, to praise Him unitedly, 
to supplicate Him unitedly, and unitedly to have our 
thoughts guided to true and lofty conceptions of Him 
in a place and house (in order that all these things 
may be felt more deeply and with less of distraction) 
disconnected from worldly uses, and dedicated espe- 
cially to Him. This is a natural, universal, inde- 
structible sentiment, as much so as the approval of 
what is right, or the affection of a parent for a child. 
If then our churches are neglected by any large pro- 
portion of our people, this must be done not so much 
from any fault in human nature, as at the cost of oiF- 
ering violence to a strong natural sentiment. 

11. Nor in -^qy is it from any fault in Christianity 
tianity. That religion which, by its own intrinsic 

power and complete adaptation to the spiritual wants 
of civilized man, overthrew all the religions of Eu- 
rope, and of those parts of Asia and Africa at that 
time in connection with Europe, cannot for a moment 
be considered to be deficient in the power of attract- 
ing all hearts and minds to itself. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 137 

If the fault, then, is neither in our 12. Those 

who are re- 

nature nor in our religion, where is it to pelied, say 

be looked for? What is it? In what cause what 

does it consist? Where does it reside? Jo them is^ 

I would rather confine myself to our own ^^^ ^? P^^^'"^ 

"^ a religion 

Church, but it will help us in obtaining as a form. 
an answer to the question before us, to observe that 
this loss of attractive power has spread much more 
widely in the Church of Rome than in any other 
Christian body. We may almost ask what has become 
of the religion of Italy, of Spain, of France, and of 
Germany. The Pope tells us in his recent allocution 
that the fault is to be found in the philosophical and 
political speculations of the day, and in the corrup- 
tions of human nature. And many of our own reli- 
gious leaders give very similar replies. These cannot 
be the reasons. If they were, Christianity could never 
have existed in the world. The true reasons must be 
very different from any thing of this kind. It may be 
as well to hear what these people say themselves, and 
to see whether it agrees with what those amongst our- 
selves say, both of the educated and uneducated 
classes, who have any complaints to make upon this 
subject. It cannot be that they are devoid of the re- 
ligious sentiment. That is impossible. It may be so 
with an individual here and there, but it can never be 
the case with classes, still less with nations. They 
themselves do not allege any thing of this kind. It is 

12* 



138 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

evident that even the infidelity of the present day is 
not irreligious. It is puerile and false to affirm that 
it is. Nor is it that men have imagined any thing 
that they conceive to be higher or purer than the life 
and teaching of Jesus Christ. They frequently affirm 
the contrary. What they tell us is, that religion is 
now taught as a theology, as a system of dry dogmas, 
with ecclesiastical rather than human aims; and not 
as a religion, that is, as certain divine principles pos- 
sessing a power to elevate man's nature and to guide 
his feelings aright, as something possessing the power 
of binding men to God and to one another. They say 
that theology, dry dogmas, are what the Churches are 
fighting about ; are what they see inscribed on the stand- 
ards which the Churches raise, and under which they 
urge their members to fight ; whereas, what men crave 
for is light, love, trustfulness; what is true, what is 
of good report, what is lovable; what may give 
strength when strength is needed, and what may give 
rest where rest is possible; faith in God and man; 
hope, justice, charity. 
13. This This is the account which those who 

intelligible 

and not withdraw themselves from the Ministers 

able or ir- and ministrations of religion give of their 
re igious. conduct. And can we, who are the Min- 
isters of the "Word, and who in this respect stand to 
our brethren in Christ's place, regard the account 
they give of their conduct as altogether irrational, and 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 139 

in every sense irreligious ? Rather is there not some- 
thing religious in the feelings and thoughts which they 
thus describe to us? Would a theology and a system 
of dogmas have converted the Roman Empire and es- 
tablished Christianity in the world? Very few, I 
think, would be of opinion that they could have pro- 
duced such effects. And as moral no less than political 
empire is maintained by the same means by which it 
is acquired, I do not think that Christianity can be 
upheld by this method of preaching it and presenting 
it to men's minds. Does the artisan class, the one 
amongst us which has broken to the greatest extent 
with the Church, do the men of science, and do the 
wretched in any way (and in these days the forms of 
mental as well as of other kinds of distress are very 
numerous), feel that what they are in need of is a the- 
ology and dogmas? When therefore we offer these to 
them in the first place as spiritual food and light, we 
can understand what they say when they tell us that 
they are repelled ; that they felt that they were ask- 
ing for the bread of life, and we offered them a stone, — 
something very cold and hard. 

What then are we to do ? Are we to ^^- Chris- 

tianity, as 

give up our theology and our dogmatic presented 

by Jesus 

teaching? If we were to do this, we Christ and 
could hardly be regarded any more as a ^^ ^he Gen- 
Church. But what we must do, if it can p^wer^to 

be done, is to find out what men really convert the 

' ^ *' world, 

want, and to supply their wants, remem- 



140 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

bering that the Gospel when first preached to the 
world exactly met the wants of those sph'ituallj dis- 
tressed times. The fact that the world accepted 
Christianity without 'the application, in spite even of 
the use on the other side, of force, voluntarily, and 
often at great cost, proves that it supplied a deeply- 
felt want. It also proves that men are not irrational 
in this matter, and that they are not irreligious ; for 
the very thing they require is, that their reason and 
their religious wants should be really and truly satis- 
fied. This has been done once, and so may be done 
again, if attempted in the same way in which it was 
originally done. What Christ did, and felt, and 
taught, and what Paul did, and felt, and taught, was 
what converted the world. Here then is what we who 
are Ministers of the Word must endeavor to do, and 
to feel, and to teach, setting before all that to do and 
to feel in this way will be emancipation and happi- 
ness. 

15. The If -vve could rekindle the feeling de- 

satisfying _ _ ^ ^ 

plenteous- scribed in the thirty-sixth Psalm, we might 

ness of II' 

God's house, then be sure that our work was bemg 
ded^b^y the'^" "^^^^ ^^^^ ? ^^ making the Church attractive 
Psalmist. ^g^j^ |jg regarded as a proof of our doing 
our work well. " The children of men shall be satisfied 
with the plenteousness of Thy house ; and Thou shalt 
give them to drink of Thy pleasures as out of a river. 
For with Thee is the well of life, and in thy light 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 141 

shall we see light." God is the well of life, and God 

is the light that we desire ; and in the act of united 

worship in His house, may not men attain to large 

measures of that light and that life, and so become 

satisfied with the plenteousness of His house ? 

Our own form of public worship appears 1^- The 

excellence 
to supply US with every thing that is re- of our form 

. . _ of public 

quisite lor this purpose, in this respect worship, as 
it is quite unequalled. We must regard it as ^Th^those 
aimins: at satisfyino; the wants both of the ^^/■y\^®^ 

° ./ o wliich make 

heart and of the understanding ; for re- *oo much of 

preaching. 

ligion is the offspring not of one of these 
only, but of both, that is of our whole moral nature ; 
and regarding our Liturgy in this way, we shall find, I 
think, that it provides with more than human wisdom 
and insight for every thing that a religious service or 
public worship can require. Some Christian bodies 
err in maintaining services which aim almost exclu- 
sively at imparting instruction. This is evident from 
the fact that with them the sermon is the main feature 
of the service. Every thing else is subordinated to 
it. This is a very serious mistake, because it is a 
misconception of the main object of a religious ser- 
vice. It sends away those who should have been wor- 
shippers without their having had presented to them 
any proper opportunity for worship. Many of the 
religious emotions which belong to worship have by 
such services not been gratified, or even awakened. 



142 EXTEMPOKARY PREACHING. 

No food is provided for them: they are starved 
Services of this kind have a chilling and hardening 
effect. Thej minister to a spirit of controversy, and 
to arrogancj. 
17. And i^ ig possible, as we all know, for a 

with those ^ ' ' 

which dis- Church to err in the opposite direction, 
parage it. i t i . ^ 

It may attach so little importance to the 

sermon, or may have a repugnance to the liberty of 
prophesying, as in most of its services to dispense en- 
tirely with the exposition of the Word of God. This 
is to depreciate the Word of God, or to be afraid of it. 
The main, almost the whole, eifort that is made, is to 
awaken religious emotion, to sway the heart. Every 
means has been resorted to for bringing this about ; 
incense, vestments, pomp, processioDS, ceremonies, 
symbolisms, music, painting, sculpture, architecture. 
Every thing that has power to stir emotion, as distinct 
from thought, has been attended to. The understand- 
ing alone is not appealed to, just as if there were 
something to be dreaded, or even something unholy in 
the understanding; or as if, at all events, it had 
nothinc; to do with reliaiion. It is well that the reli- 
gious emotions should be cultivated, but ill that this 
should be done without the aid of the understanding; 
the consequences of which we see are indistinctness 
and ignorance in matters of religion, that is to say, the 
substitution of superstition for religion. 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 143 

Our admirable Liturffv avoids what is l^- How 
^•^ ^ the dif- 

faulty in these two extremes, and combines ferent 

what is good in each. It neither allows religious 

the exposition of the Word of God to re- ^)alanced\n 

duce the rest of the service to insi^ni- f "^' ^^' 

° turgy, 

ficance, nor does it regard it as a matter 
of small account. Just so too with the devotional 
part of the service. It does not allow that to over- 
power the instructional part, or to be overpowered by 
it. Each is duly considered and adequately provided 
for. The provision made for religious instruction is, 
that the whole of the Word of God should be read 
through in the course of the year, the Psalms twelve 
times, and the New Testament, with the exception of 
the Book of the Revelation of St. John, three times, 
with the addition of certain portions of the Gospels 
and Epistles being selected for a fourth repetition; 
and that, furthermore, on every occasion of public 
service, a part, or some point of God's Word should 
be expounded. The provision made for pure devotion 
supplies means and opportunities for the expression 
of every kind of religious emotion, — confession, hu- 
miliation, supplication, the making known our wants 
to God, the thanking and praising Him for all His 
goodness, the sense of pardon, reconciliation, and ac- 
ceptance. Nothing that can call forth religious emo- 
tion, or to which religious emotion can desire to give 
utterance, has been omitted. 



144 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 



19. The We may then, I think, infer, that 
effect of this 

admirable wherever SO admirable a service fails to 

be weakened draw men to the house of God, having 



faultsin become incapable of satisfying the natural 

*^°d^ ^Vt instinct for united public worship, there 
must be something elsewhere than in the 
service • itself very wrong. Whatever circumstances 
of the day there may be that bear upon and affect the 
conclusions and feelings of certain classes among us, 
I pass by, because their direct consideration does not 
belong to my subject. There may, of course, be faults 
in certain individuals and in certain classes, and some 
of the circumstances of the times may be adverse to a 
right appreciation of our service ; but there may also 
be faults in the Minister who conducts the service. 
This last particular is all that my subject now requires 
me to advert to. He may be wanting in devotion, or 
in learning, or in some qualification needed for en- 
abling him to conduct the service in such a manner as 
shall satisfy the religious feelings of the congregation. 
20. The The foregoing pages aim at indicating 

responsible what in some cases may be the remedy 
duty of the r» i /• -i • • i 

Minister of when the cause oi the lailure is m the 

this matter! Minister. The service, even if absolutely 
perfect in itself, cannot do every thing. 
Much will still depend on the way in which it is con- 
ducted, that is, on the Minister. In this, after all, 
lies his chief duty as a Minister of the Word. Those 



EXTEMPORAEY PREACHING. 145 

committed to his charge are assembled before him. 
He. is leading their intercourse with God. He is 
delivering to them God's Word, and speaking to them 
all, collected for this purpose, of the things belonging 
to their salvation. If it is important that he should 
be able to speak to them individually on this subject, 
as occasions present themselves, how much more im- 
portant is it that he should be able to speak to them 
all collectively. Many of them he never sees at any 
other times. How solemn and imperative then is the 
duty of the Clergy to take care, by the way in which 
they perform their part of the service, that its effect is 
not weakened, and no discredit brought upon it ! In 
this matter a heavy, a very heavy responsibility, de- 
volves upon them. They have to take care that the 
instructional parts do really convey instruction, and 
that the devotional parts are led in such a manner as 
really to awaken and sustain devotion. To do these 
things as they ought to be done requires very high 
attainments, and is an offering to God worthy of the 
mind and of the heart He has given to man. The 
Minister of the Word is bound by the most sacred 
considerations not to aim at any thing less. The man 
who attains to this high aim makes a worthier contri- 
bution to the service of God, and does more to elevate 
its character, than he would have done had he built a 
cathedral of marble, decorated with gold and precious 

stones, for the service to be performed in ; for the 
13 



146 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

service is greater tlian the temple; and the mind and 
heart, to which the service gives expression, are more 
precious than ruhies and fine gold, and all the things 
•we can desire for ourselves or dedicate to God are not 
to be compared to them. 



SERMONS 



The remainder of the volume will contain notes of 
six sermons I preached while occupied on this work, 
followed bj six studies for sermons. In each case 
the notes were written after preaching, from recollec- 
tion of what had been said, aided by the few brief 
memoranda that had been made at the time of the 
study of the subject, and which were made in order 
that the plan and arrangement which had then been 
thought out might not be forgotten. The reader will 
readily see that the sermons are not finished compo- 
sitions, such as would admit of being read from the 
pulpit, but merely what they profess to be, notes of 
what was said. 

I propose to append to each sermon a few observa- 
tions. These will be of two kinds; for I wish to 
comment both on their matter and on their structure 
and composition ; that is to say, both on what is said, 
and upon the way in which it is said. Indeed, my 
object in giving the sermons will be contained in the 

147 



148 EXTEMPORAEY PEEACHING. 

observations which will follow them, for it is mj wish 
to use them as illustrations of the rules and advice I 
have given in the preceding part of this work. 

It may appear an unusual proceeding for a writer 
to comment on his own work ; and so I must explain 
why I am about to do this. I do it because I am 
obliged to do it; for it would not be allowable for me 
to reprint half-a-dozen sermons from other people's 
works. I must therefore give sermons of my own. 
And as to commenting upon them, I shall be able to 
do this with much more freedom and ease when my 
own compositions are the subject of the comment, for 
I shall know why I said one thing and not another ; 
and what is the meaning and purpose of each sermon, 
and of each part of each sermon. 

The reader, too, when he finds that the sermons are 
the work of the writer who has undertaken to give 
him advice on the very subject of the composition of 
sermons, will be more disposed to make his own re- 
marks and to form his own judgment upon them than 
he would be were they taken from other people's 
works. 

I have throughout the foregoing pages insisted on 
the principle that the preaching of the Minister of. 
the Word can rest only on the Word itself. And I 
have endeavored to make it clear that I mean by this 
that his preaching must exhibit not an ignorant fami- 
liarity, but what in the opinion of competent judges 



EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 149 

is well-informed and intelligent acquaintance with the 
Word; that is to say it must include a knowledge of 
all that in these days contributes to a full and right 
understanding of it. An address that does not show 
this is not an exposition of the Word of God, is not a 
sermon, but the speech of an ignorant man that will 
repel all who are not as ignorant as the speaker him- 
self. For the Word of God is the truth on all matters 
of duty and religion as far as God has permitted it to 
be revealed to the existing generation ; and the pro- 
phet, or preacher, is the man who having attained to 
a knowledge of this truth delivers it effectually to 
those who have not attained, and who indeed never 
will be able to attain to it, without his aid. 

A sermon must also be felt to be the address of a 
Christian to Christians; of one who does himself feel 
the truth, the force, and the value of what he is set- 
ting before others. The convictions and the expe- 
riences he is speaking about are his own. He has 
suffered from what he describes as evil. What he 
commends as good and profitable he has found good 
and profitable to himself. The words of an exponent 
of Theology are one thing, and the words of a Chris- 
tian Minister are quite another thing. The flavor and 
effect of the two are very unlike. The faculties even 
to which they are addressed are not the same ; for the 
former are submitted to the critical, and the latter to 
the moral faculties. 

13* 



150 ;extemporary preaching. 

One word more : all worship is communion with 
God. Without this communion of man's spirit with 
God's Spirit there can be no religion. It is therefore 
not only useless, but a positive and direct injury to 
the cause of religion that a man, whose daily life and 
bearing are inconsistent with the idea of habitual 
communion with God, should stand up before the 
Lord's congregation, as Jesus did in the Synagogue 
of Nazareth, to speak about the things of the king- 
dom of God. What the Preacher may have to say 
must be gathered from many sources, some old, some 
new; but every thing he says ought, and that mani- 
festly, to have been sifted, harmonized, and sanctified 
by communion with God, by prayer. 



SERMON I. 



Isaiah xxviii. 10. 
''Here a little, and there a little." 

It can result only from a narrow and mistaken view 
of religion to suppose that any of the conclusions of 
observation or experience which may contribute 
towards enabling us to form a correct estimate of 
human life, and to act wisely under the circumstances 
in which we are placed here, can be unimportant. It 
is possible that a statement may contain nothing dis- 
tinctively Christian, and yet, by its truth and wisdom, 
may be very serviceable to one desirous of doing good 
Christian work. 

Consider what the words "here a little, there a lit- 
tle," suggest. Certainly nothing religious or Christian 
in the ordinary acceptation of those words. They 
convey nothing doctrinal. Nevertheless they are full 
of true practical wisdom, which it would be folly to 

regard as something separate from religion. The idea 

151 



152 EXTEMPORAEY PREACHmG. 

contained in tliem is, that we are not to expect to be 
always engaged in what we may consider important 
undertakings, or to be always making what we may 
consider rapid progress. We must at times be content 
with work that appears to us very humble, and with 
progress that appears to us very slow ; with only a 
little here, and a little there. 

This is just one of the most necessary lessons for 
the enthusiastic, the zealous, and the half-informed. 
They are always looking for what they regard as great 
things. They are always impatient of delay. But if 
they would add knowledge, and wisdom, the fruit of 
knowledge, to their zeal, they would learn that there 
is ''a day of small things" as well as a day of great 
things. Resistance of one kind or another, from one 
quarter or another, is always springing up to hinder 
our undertakings; and so seldom indeed would it be 
good even for a good cause to have every thing its 
own way, that the days of small things are to the days 
of great things as thousands to one. The man who is 
wise in knowing this, while he sets before himself what, 
accordino; to the liojht that is in him, he conceives to 
be the highest and best objects, and lives for them, 
will not be discouraged because he finds that he can 
seldom do more than ^'a little here, and a little 
there." 

In nature, as we are beginning to understand, all 
great changes are effected very gradually and very 



HEEE A LITTLE, THERE A LITTLE. 153 

slowly. Continents are not built up, mountain ranges 
are not elevated, oceans are not excavated bj sudden 
efforts. These grand operations are carried through 
so gradually, that the rate of progress is quite inap- 
preciable to man, even when by the aid of letters his 
memory, or rather his view of the past, is enabled to 
reach back for three or four thousand years. These 
things have been done over the whole of our earth, so 
as to make every part of its surface what it now is; 
the same causes, producing similar results, are every 
where in operation at this moment; but the rate at 
which the progress has been, and is still being carried 
on, is inconceivably slow. 

Add another remark : this slow rate of progress in 
nature is God's v/ork. It comes from His mind. It 
is His doing. He it is who is so many thousands of 
years in excavating the bed of an ocean, and in con- 
structing a continent. And the agents He employs 
for doing His work are either themselves so small, or 
must work so slowly, that any rapid progress is 
simply impossible. Perhaps large districts of future 
continents are being formed from fragments of micro- 
scopic animalcules; while the now existing continents 
are being worn away by the gradual erosion of rains, 
and rivers, and tides, and waves, and winds, and frost. 
In these things God does every thing very gradually, 
*'a little here, and a little there." 

Now it is probable that the Being who thinks it 



154 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

best to act in this way -SYith respect to the material 
world in which He has placed man, will act in a sim- 
ilar way with respect to man himself; man and the 
world in which he is placed being the correlated parts 
of one plan. The same mind underlies and regulates 
the progress of both. When we come to the facts of 
the case, we find that they support the supposition. 
The greatest event that has taken place in the history 
of the world was the development and establishment 
of our religion ; and how instructive is the review of 
the gradual way in which it was brought about ! Take 
the particulars as they are recorded in the Holy 
Scriptures. Sin entered into the world when the first 
man transgressed. But how many thousand years 
elapsed before the appearance on the scene of Him 
who was to overcome sin, and to be our guide into the 
perfect way of righteousness! The steps by which 
God prepared the world for His coming were slow and 
gradual, almost beyond any thing we can imagine. 
The patriarchs, the chosen people, the law given 
through Moses, the prophets, were only a few of the 
later steps in the long line of events, which issued at 
last, when the fulness of time was come, in the state 
of necessary preparation. In other parts of the world 
other lines of events had to be carried through, and 
other equally necessary results matured. Millennium 
after millennium was required for this purpose, and 
was passed in this way. 



HERE A LITTLE, THERE A LITTLE. 155 

Then, when all things were at last made ready, 
consider how gradually the actual establishment of 
the Gospel was brought about. It was not done by a 
sudden decree, or by an instantaneous exercise of 
omnipotence. The Saviour appeared as an infant, 
and grew to man's estate just like any other child of 
man. He then delivered the Gospel by the slow pro- 
cess of preaching it — a process necessarily of some 
years. He was then content to leave this earth 
without having effected its establishment. Were 
there half-a-dozen persons in all who understood His 
Gospel and believed on Him at the time when He 
gave up the ghost on the Cross? Certainly there 
were not. And so the Apostles were commissioned, 
and instructed by the Spirit, and sent forth to continue 
the preaching the Lord had commenced. In this 
gradual way the Gospel of man's redemption was 
begun to be spread and established in the world. The 
rule observed was that of working gradually, ^'a little 
here, and a little there." 

Nearly two thousand years have passed since that 
time; and in what way and at what rate has the 
Gospel been advancing over the world? Only very 
gradually. Many countries it has not yet reached. 
In some it has receded. This is one of those eras in 
which visible progress is being made ; but still it is 
not being made in the way in which zeal would have 
anticipated, but through events which it took who can 



156 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

tell how many thousands of years to arrive at ? The 
chief cause of its present spread is, that at length, 
through the progress of science, and from political 
and economical causes, some of the nations that have 
received Christianity, and above all others our own 
countrymen, are now able to penetrate to and establish 
themselves in the wide waste places of the earth. 

I have still to show what practical bearing these 
remarks have upon ourselves, upon our thoughts, our 
feelings, ai:id our conduct. The lesson which stands 
out upon the surface of what we have been considering 
is, that what we are called to is to work, and still to 
work on, and to faint not. And we must not judge 
of the value of our work by the success which has 
attended it, or by the rapidity of its progress. The 
questions we must ask ourselves are such as whether 
our work is precious in the sight of God, who judges 
not as men judge, by immediate, tangible, ponderable 
results? And are its effects good upon our own char- 
acters ? These are quite distinct questions from what 
is the amount of effect it has had upon others and 
upon the world. We are too much disposed, in 
forming our estimates, only to regard the latter con- 
sideration. This is a mistaken and unfortunate 
way of judging. If the Omnipotent and All-wise is 
content to work slowly, why should we be impatient ? 
The motto of him who in this respect has learnt of 
God, 9-nd who has in himself the mind that was in 



15T 

Christ Jesus our Lord, will be, Rest not. Haste not. 
Trust in God. 

I saj that one way of estimating our work is to 
consider in what way God will estimate it. Remem- 
ber, God does not require one man to do every thing, 
nay, not even to do much ; any more than He requires 
one generation of men to do every thing, or even to 
do much. What He requires of a man is that he 
should do what He has set him to do, and what He 
has set him to do is that he should with all his heart 
do and bear whatever it is evident to conscience with 
common sense for its assessor he is called upon to do 
and to bear. Lazarus was called to suffering ; to bless 
God under the deprivation of all that is pleasant to 
flesh and blood ; and furthermore, in the midst of 
much that is most distressing. Here the busy philan- 
thropist or the eager controversialist might say was a 
form of life in which no one particle of work could 
be done. How could he who was so circumstanced be 
useful to any one? But God does not think in this 
way, otherwise Ho would at once ordain that there 
should be no more Lazaruses upon earth. Nay, 
rather looking upon this poor suiferer as occupying a 
place in a great plan ordained by God, we must come 
to the conclusion that his life was one of great use- 
fulness, issuing in great reward. Considered in this 
light we can understand that his abject condition, his 
penury of every thing that makes life desirable to the 
14 



158 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

multitude, his having none but God to help him, his 
pain-racked, corruption-eaten body, were to a large 
portion of the inhabitants of a self-willed^ and self- 
seeking capital, a very intelligible call to think of 
God and of a day to come ; a call to feel for the dis- 
tressed; and, as stewards of God's bounties for this 
very purpose, to succor them ; a call to consider the 
conditions God has imposed on human life, as for 
instance the frail tenure by which they themselves 
held their good things, their health, their wealth, and 
all their temporal advantages. Who could tell how 
soon he might not himself be made in some respect or 
other no better than this poor beggar ? The daily 
sight of so abject a sufferer possibly was a more ef- 
fectual sermon to the inhabitants of Jerusalem than 
all the preaching of all who then sat in Moses' seat. 
He who could do nothing may have done more, with- 
out opening his mouth, than they all with all their learn^ 
ing, position, and influence. And we are told how 
highly God estimated his work, for He took him to 
Himself. If a man is honest and enduring, if he is 
resigned and self-denying, if he is pure and true, is 
he not doing God's work ? And is not the light that 
shines from him that which God approves ? Is this 
work that God will think lightly of ? We must bring 
this home to ourselves. What is required of us is not 
great results as men count greatness ; if it were, few 
men would ever have done God's work in the world. 



HERE A LITTLE, THERE A LITTLE. 159 

Rather let us feel that there never lived a man who 
loved and trusted God, who believed in His justness 
and goodness, who walked as in His presence, but did 
His work abundantly and acceptably. 

I just now mentioned another way of estimating our 
work — that of considering the effect it has upon our 
own character. We are told that there are men who 
will say at the judgment, "Lord, Lord, have we not 
cast out devils in Thy name ? and in Thy name done 
many marvellous things?" to whom the Lord will say, 
"Depart from me, for I never knew you, ye workers 
of iniquity." These were they who were called to 
great position and opportunities, Avho had power, 
wealth, authority, influence, learning, culture, intel- 
lectual capacity ; and who, merely because it was their 
place to do it, did something, a thousand-fold be it, 
more than the humbly placed could appear to do; but 
the love of what is good and true and gentle, that is 
the love of God, the one source of all excellence, was 
not in them ; and so what they did had no good effect 
upon their hearts. They did not become better men, 
more loving, more self-denying, more patient, more 
gentle. Estimate then the work you have done, and 
are doing, in this way: not by attempting to measure 
its effects upon others, but by measuring its effects 
upon yourself. Estimated by this standard, many a 
man whose life-long, daily, lowly, monotonous occupa- 
tion has been in the workshop or at the plough, has 



160 EXTEMPORAEY PREACHING. 

worked to better purpose in the eyes of the great 
Task-niaster, has become more purified, better in- 
structed, more sanctified, brought nearer to God by 
his work, than some of those who in the world's esti- 
.mation have occupied a high place among its benefac- 
tors. 

These considerations throw some light upon those 
graces which are more especially Christian, enabling 
us to see what they are in themselves, and what they 
are good for. For instance, they help us to compre- 
hend the meaning of Humility. If the opportunities, 
and means, and endowments God has vouchsafed to 
us are but small, if He allows us to do but little, and 
to. advance in doing that little but slowly, when we 
have learnt of G-od the lesson before us to-day we shall 
acquiesce. We shall feel and understand that His 
mind is in the matter ; that it is in this way that He 
has thought it best to deal with us. We shall be con- 
tented, thankful, hopeful, trustful. We shall not 
complain because He has not allowed us a wider field, 
or called us to greater things. Such is the spirit of 
Christian Humility. 

Again, the facts and the thoughts that have been 
before us show how necessary a part of the Christian 
character is Perseverance, that patient continuance 
in well-doing of which we read. We must not be dis- 
couraged at finding that we have nothing of impor- 
tance to do as the world measures importance ; or that 



161 



our efforts have been attended with little success, as 
the world understands success. Our business is to 
persevere unto the end: the rest belongs to God. 

With Faith also the connection of all this is very 
close, and well worthy of notice. It is of the essence 
of Faith to trust God in all that He does, and under 
all circumstances. As soon as we shall have learnt 
that slow progress in every thing good is a law God 
has imposed upon the course of this dispensation ; that 
His plan here, certainly in things moral and spiritual 
is not to perfect any thing, but to allow of gradual 
advances towards perfection, for that belongs to, and 
will be consummated in a better world than this ; then 
one hindrance to Faith, to childlike trustful Faith, 
will be at once removed. Men arc not dissatisfied with 
what they have come to understand has been ordained 
of God. Failures, disappointments, repulses will not 
then disquiet. We shall go on, knowing that to work 
under these conditions belongs to this life, but that it 
will not always be so. We shall then travel along the 
paths of Christian duty, upon which God has placed 
us severally, assured that the man who is faithful in a 
little, will be accepted as though he had been faithful 
in much ; and that he who gives the cup of cold water, 
if that is all his opportunities permit him to do, shall 
receive a disciple's reward. 



14* 



162 EXTEMPOBARY PREACHIXa, 



Observations on the foregoing Sermon. 

With respect to the foregoing sermon, I would beg 
permission from my younger brethren to point out to 
them, that its object is not merely to call attention to 
a truth that is of much practical value, though it is 
very much overlooked; but to do it in such a manner 
as to remind the hearers of a still more important 
truth, and one it is which we are only just now be- 
ginning to understand — that what our religion is de- 
pends on what our knowledge is. 

It has no bearing on this statement to reply that 
among ourselves the ignorant classes are as susceptible 
of deep religious impressions as the most instructed, 
because those classes must always accept the religion 
of the age in which they live, whatever it may be. 
They must accept it because they have no knowledge, 
and cannot acquire any. The religion of the age, 
however, will be what the knowledge of the age 
makes it. 

The idea of this discourse is to make the knowledge 
of a few simple facts belonging to the domain of one 
of the physical sciences, and a few analogous facts of 
Christian history, a ground for the cultivation of cer- 
tain Christian graces. How melancholy a reflection 
is it that there are many amongst us who would look 



163 



upon a Christian exhortation founded on such grounds 
as incongruous, and more likely to hinder than to ad- 
vance the cause of religion. Let us consider what 
this implies. It shows that they regard religious 
truth as incompatible with scientific and historical 
truth ; though scientific truth is simply the apprehen- 
sion of the ideas which were in the mind of God 
before He embodied them in nature, and which ideas, 
at the time He set nature before us, He gave us the 
capacity and the desire to master ; and though historical 
truth is simply the ascertaining the events, with their 
sequence and connection, which God foreordained and 
brought about in human afiairs. Is it conceivable 
that the knowledge of either of these should in any 
way be opposed to religion? It is impossible that 
such knowledge can take us further from God. It 
must bring us nearer to Him. The more we appre- 
hend of the principles on which God acts, so much 
the more of His mind will be in us. Or if any object 
to the repeated statements of Scripture that God's 
works manifest to us His mind, we may put it differ- 
ently, and say — so much the more shall we form 
within ourselves of that mental and moral state God 
intended this knowledge to produce. At all events, to 
confine ourselves to the particulars I have mentioned 
in the foregoing discourse ; we are told in Holy Scrip- 
ture that God requires man to be humble and perse- 
vering, and to have Faith; and I think it must be 



164 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINO. 

plain enough that the few facts of science and history 
referred to in the sermon agree with Holy Scripture 
in commending to us these graces. 

It is a distinct and especial part of the duty of the 
Minister of the "Word, as compared with other 
teachers, to set forth the connection and correlation of 
all knowledge. Hitherto religious teachers, whether 
lay or clerical, have too generally assumed that their 
duty was directly the opposite of this. It seems to 
have been a main object with them to make it appear 
that religious knowledge is irreconcilably hostile to 
other kinds of knowledge, and they to it. How false 
and mischievous is this position ! 

The students of any department of human history, 
or of any of the natural sciences, are students of 
special branches. They carry on their inquiries 
within certain restricted and defined limits. But 
Divinity is truly, and essentially, and alone, the 
scientia scientiarum. If it is not this, it is nothing 
at all. Its subject-matter is all knowledge. The 
factors of the religious ideas of any age are all that 
is known at that time of nature and of man ; that is, 
what is known of the ways in which God has mani- 
fested Himself in nature, and of the ways in which 
He has constituted and dealt with ourselves, which in- 
cludes our moral being, our past history, and our pre- 
sent condition. The most important source of this 
latter department of knowledge is the Holy Scriptures, 



165 

But they are very far indeed from containing or pro- 
fessing to contain all that it is necessary we should 
know about ourselves. 

If we look out over the world, we still find people 
among whom religion is only in its germ : a state of 
which history supplies us with other instances. This 
germ of religion is Fetishism ; in other words, it is the 
religion of almost complete ignorance. The worshipper 
of a Fetish has no conception of man's history, of him- 
self indeed he can scarcely form any conception as a 
moral being ; and as to nature, all he knows of it is 
that certain objects have certain properties, but his 
knowledge does not go so far as to enable him to de- 
fine what those properties really are, or to connect 
the properties of which he has a dim conception with 
the objects to which they rightly belong. And so he 
worships a feather, or a tooth. As knowledge widens 
and deepens, so does religion purify itself. There is 
no denying this, unless one would deny the teachings 
both of observation and of history. Every religion 
that now exists, or that we know of as ever having ex- 
isted in the world, has been in strict correlation to the 
knowledge of those who made it their rule of life. As 
knowledge advances, religion advances pari passu. 
Religion is the knowledge men possess of God and of 
themselves used as a means for supplying them with a 
rule of life. 

Again then : how unfortunate is the opposition in 



166 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

which some endeavor to place religion to science and 
history. It is most unfortunate for themselves ; for 
those they lead, or rather mislead; and for a time, 
but only for a time, for the cause of religion itself. 
As the difference between the religion of Fetishism 
and our own is simply a difference of knowledge, we 
ought to hail every accession to our knowledge, be- 
cause it must purify, elevate, and strengthen our 
religion. The discoveries of Astronomers, Geologists, 
Botanists, Zoologists, and Chemists, have enlarged 
and rendered more impressive some of our ideas of 
God. So with those who extend our knowledge of the 
history and of the nature of man. We need not then 
have any dread of the extension of knowledge. If its 
extension be, from a religious point of view, an evil, 
how much have we now to dread, for it is certainly 
now being extended with a rapidity wholly unknown 
in former times. But what ground can there be for 
believing that we have reached, or ever shall reach a 
point at which the laws of mind will be so far reversed, 
as that knowledge which has hitherto built up shall 
thenceforth overthrow religion ? From a date long an- 
terior to the time of Galileo, there has existed a most 
pernicious misunderstanding between religion and 
knowledge. They have feared, hated, reviled each 
other. Under the Old Dispensation we see no trace 
of this feeling. There religion is distinctly based on 
knowledge. And now, again, there are symptoms of 



HEEB A LITTLE, THERE A LITTLE. 167 

their true relation to each other being better under- 
stood. We may say this "when we see many Ministers 
of Religion cultivating, -welcoming, and dissemina- 
ting knowledge; and this with a clear perception of 
the extent to which religion is dependent upon it ; and 
when, on the other hand, we see men of science no 
longer denouncing religion, but regarding their sciences 
as contributory to it. 



SERMON II. 



WHAT WE AEE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 



2 Corinthians xi. 23 — 27. 

"In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons 
more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I 
forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I 
stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been 
in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of 
robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the hea- 
then, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in 
the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in weariness and pain- 
fulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings 
often, in cold and nakedness." 

This is a description of the life the Apostle Paul 
had been passing for several years. It was a life of 
ceaseless toil, peril, suffering, unjust treatment, and 
insult. Many must be struck with the thought that 
he who had to bear all this must have been a very 
wretched man. Indeed, all who might regard the 
Apostle's manner of life from the ordinary point of 
view, that is, from the point of view from which most 
168 



WHAT WE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 169 

of US regard our own lives, would have abundant 
reason for coming to sucli a conclusion. " Here," 
they would think, "is not one of the circumstances 
which render life agreeable; no leisure, no home, no 
display, no pleasures; and instead of these every thing 
which flesh and blood most shrink from. What a 
miserable life ! What a miserable man!" I cannot, 
I suppose, be wrong in taking it for granted that this 
is the light in which ma^ny of those who are noAV here 
present regard the description just given of the 
Apostle's life. 

There is, however, quite another way of looking at 
it, and quite an opposite conclusion to be arrived at 
respecting it. I mean the Apostle's way of looking 
at it, and his conclusion respecting it. Mark, the 
way of looking at it, and the conclusion respecting it 
of the man who was himself bearing it all. In men- 
tioning his labors, dangers, and sufferings, he does not 
do it with the slightest thought of lamenting himself, 
or in any way making himself an object of pity. He 
does not at all say, "See what a sufferer, what an 
unhappy man I am." On the contrary, he speaks of 
these things as if he somehow or other had satisfaction 
in thinking of them. The expression drops from him 
that "he glories in them." The remembrance of 
them is no more accompanied with any feeling of hu- 
miliation, than with any desire to complain. And in 
the following chapter wo find him going so far as to 
15 



170 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

say that "he takes pleasure in infirmities, reproaches, 
necessities, persecutions, and distresses." Nor has 
he a thought that fear of such treatment as he had 
himself received would deter men from accepting the 
Gospel. 

It may add some weight to the judgment and ex- 
ample of the Apostle to remember that no one could 
have obliged him to submit to these miseries. Had he 
been so minded, he might have escaped them all. 
He might have stayed quietly at home, and to use 
our way of speaking on the subject, have enjoyed life. 
But this was not T»^hat he preferred. With his eyes 
open, seeing clearly that all these miseries would be 
brought upon him, of his own choice, and gladly too, 
he went forth and incurred them all. His address to 
the elders of Miletum is very moving: "And now, 
behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not 
knowing the things that shall befall me there: save 
that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying 
that bonds and afilictions abide me. But none of 
these things move me, neither count I my life dear 
unto myself, so that I might finish my course with 
joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the 
Lord Jesus." He says tliis of himself in the year in 
which he gives the account of his life we have in the 
text. Shortly after his making this statement to the 
elders of Miletum of the suiferings he expected in 
every city, we find the disciples £it Caesarea entreating 



WHAT WE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 171 

him to have some regard for his own safety, and not 
to go up to Jerusalem; to this entreaty he replies, 
"What mean ye to weep and to break my heart? for 
I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die for 
the name of the Lord Jesus." 

And furthermore he had now had five-and-twenty 
years' experience in this kind of life. He knew the 
hardness and the sharpness of all these things. For 
so many years had they been his daily lot. But long 
experience had not worked in him any desire to shrink 
from them, or escape from them. And in this same 
mind he persevered until the end came, which was 
only a few years later. He continued to fight the 
good fight, not reckoning his life dear unto himself, 
till at length the violent and painful death he had so 
long foreseen was inflicted on him. " Not tribulation, 
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or 
peril, or the sword, could separate him from the love 
of God which was in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nay, in 
all these things he was more than a conqueror through 
Him that loved him." 

The reciprocal exclamations which closed the scene 
between the Roman Governor Festus and King 
Agrippa on the one side, and the prisoner Paul on 
the other, place in the strongest light the contrast 
between the two aspects of the Apostle's life. The 
Roman Governor, taking the worldly view, considers 
the Apostle mad. "Paul," he exclaims, "thou art 



172 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

beside thyself." To his mind it was quite irrational 
to expose one's self to dangers and inconveniences 
for spiritual or speculative objects. And just so it is 
among ourselves. How many think and talk in the 
same way of similar earnestness and self-devotion. 
Paul's fervid wish addressed to King Agrippa rests 
upon just the opposite ground; ''I would to God, that 
not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were 
almost, and altogether such as I am, except these 
bonds." He, the poor prisoner as they thought, 
brought into trouble by his ridiculous hallucinations, 
was so satisfied with, and so happy in his own condi- 
tion, that he could have no more exalted wish for 
them, king and governor though they were, than that 
they should be as he was, with the exception of his 
bonds. Prisoner though he was, he was in his own 
estimation a happier man than any governor or king. 
He would not have changed his life, taking the inner 
life with the outer, for the life of any other man. He 
had nothing better to wish for them than that they 
should be as he was. 

So was it with the Apostle — him, who after the 
Author and Finisher of our Faith, was its great foun- 
der. But how is it in these matters with ourselves ? 
How far are we like-minded with him ? What are we 
seeking? What are the ideas of happiness which are 
shaping our lives ? These are questions which men 
answer in most diverse ways. And probably, we. 



WHAT WE AEE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 173 

should see, if we were capable of taking all things 
into our consideration, that it is best that it should be 
so. But what each has to consider for himself is, 
whether his own ways are wise ? Whether it would 
be better for him to take that view of life upon which 
the Apostle acted, or that on which the world acts ? 
Are ease, pomp, show, wealth, pleasure, self-indul- 
gence, the best objects we can set before ourselves, 
and what we ought to be seeking ? The Apostle did 
not think that these things constituted the happiness 
of this life. Or if he did, then he thought that there 
was something more worthy of his pursuit than the 
happiness of this life. He took little thought about 
these things how they befell. What he gave himself 
up to was the practice in himself, and the extension 
among his fellow-men, of what he had come to know 
was true, and right, and good for man, being the will 
and the truths of God; and therefore beyond measure 
more desirable for man than any thing else. He 
would do this good ; and he would purchase the satis- 
faction of having done it, at all personal risk and sa- 
crifice. If happiness means ease and pleasure, his 
life proclaims to us that it ought not to be made the 
end and aim of our existence. Or if we must seek 
happiness, it must be a happiness of a diiFerent kind, 
a happiness which arises from our knowing that we 
are living for objects out of ourselves — what I just 
^mentioned, for right, for truth, for God; that we are 



174 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 
and are on God's side. These are matters into which 
a man ought to look. A man ought to be able to give 
a reason for the conclusions on which he has staked 
all he has, nay all he is. What else can concern him 
so much? 

And here the practice and the instincts of the dis- 
ciples of the world appear to be better than what they 
avow as their principles. They talk as if ease and 
pleasure were happiness, and as if they were what 
men ought to seek. But are their lives always con- 
sistent with these ideas? Do we not see multitudes 
of worldly persons, I mean persons who clearly are 
not under the influence of religion, in their practice 
quite abandoning all this talk about ease and pleasure 
and happiness? Do we not see them taking most 
laboriously some to one pursuit and some to another? 
This is one of those points in which the children of 
this world are in their generation wiser than the 
children of light. One will devote all his powers to 
the attempt to advance in some branch of knowledge, 
or to perfect himself in some branch of art. Another 
will rise early, and late take rest, and eat the bread 
of carefulness, that he may die a rich man. Another 
will pass laborious days and sleepless nights, that he 
may stand high in reputation among m:en. Now these 
persons, though professing to believe in the world, and 
to have little religion, have thrown to the winds all 



WHAT WE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 175 

that the world says about ease and pleasure, and are 
striving for their particular objects, though not in the 
same spirit, yet quite as devotedly as the Apostle 
strove for his. When then I see multitudes of the 
disciples of the world agreeing with the true disciples 
of the heavenly wisdom in devoting themselves, with- 
out regarding labors and inconveniences, to their sev- 
eral objects of pursuit, I must come to the conclusion 
that God has so made men as that they shall not be 
satisfied with ease and pleasure ; that whether they be 
worldly or religious, they shall see plainly, almost, I 
may say, in proportion to the intelligence God has 
given them, that such a kind of life is low and con- 
temptible, and that self-devotion to some pursuit is far 
more desirable. 

There are probably not many who deliberately give 
themselves up to ease and pleasure ; and of those who 
do, but a very small proportion appear to be satisfied 
with themselves; that is to say, are at peace with their 
own consciences. How frequently do we see such 
men restless and discontented. Their ease and plea- 
sure do not appear so much like ease and pleasure as 
like uneasiness and unhappiness. 

I should feel no hesitation in leaving the decision 
of this question to any audience, and least of all to 
one composed of those whom circumstances oblige to 
pass a life of toil and drudgery. But let us put it to 
ourselves. Which of the two lives is most in accord- 



176 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

ance Tvith the faculties and purposes of our nature; 
the life of the Apostle who took pleasure in re- 
proaches, in necessities, in persecutions, and distres- 
ses for Christ's sake and the Gospel's sake, or his 
■who said, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 
many years. Eat, drink, and take thine ease?" You 
feel that the Apostle respects himself and his work, 
and is to be honored, loved, imitated, while the other 
man respects nothing, and is simply contemptible. 
If the choice were offered to you, I think you would 
say, let me be the Apostle, with all his infirmities, re- 
proaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses, and 
not the poor wretch whose aspirations could not get 
beyond eating and drinking and taking his ease. 

It seems then to come up from the very depths of 
man's heart and mind, the thought having been im- 
planted in him by his Creator, that it is not good for 
him to have his portion in this life; that he is not 
here for ease and pleasure. We ought then to take 
counsel of this instinctive sentiment, and to consider 
how we can live conformably to it. It would be very 
serviceable to bring this distinctly before our thoughts, 
and, if possible, to obtain our assent to it as regards 
ourselves. Let us therefore put it to ourselves, each 
to himself: ^'I am not here to take my ease and plea- 
sure, but to follow w^hat is true and right; to do 
whatever God calls me to do, and to bear whatever 
He lays upon me." Let us say this to ourselves, and 



WHAT WE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 177 

see whether we are dismayed at what it means. Let 
us consider whether we accept or reject it; whether 
it sounds to us proper and reasonable, or otherwise. 

But how shall we carry out in action these senti- 
ments ? We have the account of the way in which 
the Apostle Paul and his fellow- Apostles, and of the 
way in which the Author and Finisher of our faith 
acted upon them. Enough was said in the first part 
of my discourse about the Apostle. Now look at the 
man Christ Jesus, in whom dwelt the fulness of the 
Godhead bodily. Even He pleased not Himself, but 
was made perfect by suffering, by labors, by self- 
denial — by what we call working. For the joy that 
was set before Him, the joy of revealing and of propa* 
gating the truth, and of doing good. He endured the 
Cross, despising the shame. In this way it was that 
He widened and relaid the foundations of the regene- 
ration of the world. Consider how He labored and 
how He suffered ; and remember that His sufferings 
came upon Him as a part of the work He had under- 
taken. And with respect to those sufferings, we are 
sure that sorrow was not the only feeling with which 
He was acquainted. We know that he thanked His 
Father in heaven at the view of the work in which 
He was engaged. And it cannot but have been, that 
in His holy and self-devoted life, the joy of which the 
Apostle speaks, was deeper and more soul-sustaining 



178 EXTEMPORAKY PREACHING. 

than was ever felt by any other of all who have been 
on earth in human form. 

You see then, brethren, the vocation to which we 
are called. "We must go and do likewise. God gives 
the opportunities and the powers for doin-g so. We 
must put God, and the truth, and goodness before every 
thing. One good, holy, right, and godlike action, 
however much self-denial it may need, and in this 
world of sin, such actions will always imply self- 
denial, one such action is worth more than whole ages 
of ease and pleasure. We cannot imagine ourselves 
having been endowed with our moral and intellectual 
faculties, having been enabled to carry our thoughts 
beyond the limits of this world, and to acquaint our- 
selves with God, merely that we might labor and rest, 
eat and drink, grow and decay, and die. The ideas 
are incongruous. No; the kind of actions and the 
kind of life I have been setting before you are far 
better and more desirable than any thing self-indul- 
gence can dream of. Am I, then, rich or jDoor ? 
Young or old ? A child or a parent ? A husband 
or a wife ? A master or a servant ? One exercising 
authority or one subject to it? Am I a neighbor to 
others ? Am I a Christian ? Each of these relations 
indicates much that I am called to do ; and which I 
may find a satisfaction in doing hardly of this earth, 
because it is a satisfaction such as .the world can 
neither give nor take away. Each of these relations 



WHAT ^YE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 179 

is proof enough that ease and pleasure are not mj 
first aim here; for each of them implies that there is 
something for me to do, the obligation to do which I 
cannot get rid of, because it inheres to the relation, 
and has upon me, as long as the relation exists, prior 
claims to any thing else. 



Observations on the foregoing Sermon, 

I have two observa,tions to make on this sermon. 
The first is, that it supplies an instance of a difficulty 
which often, as in this case, becomes a fault in the 
composition of sermons. It is the difficulty of avoid- 
ing the unpardonable ofi'ence of dulness in the state- 
ment of such an argument as that set forth in the 
first part of the discourse before us. The object of 
the argument is, by calling attention to several par- 
ticulars of St. Paul's life in succession, to accumulate 
their whole weight in favor of that view of life which 
supposes that there is something better worth seeking 
than ease and self-indulgence. In order that this 
efi*ect may be produced, it is necessary to dwell for a 
few moments on each of these particulars. This is 
necessary ; but the impression it produces on the mind 
of the hearers is bad. The impression left is: this is 
all very true, but it does not matter much tQ me. Jn 



180 EXTEMPORAPvY PREACHING. 

fact, tliere is nothing in it to interest the thought, or 
awaken the feelings of ordinary hearers. 

Now this difficulty may be met in two ways. First, 
by delivery. In society it is not uncommon to find 
persons who have an admirable style of talking. 
Their opinions are not wiser or truer than the 
opinions of multitudes of other men, but they are very 
much better put. Every thing is worded so neatly 
and clearly, and said in so gentle and yet so decided 
a manner, and in such pleasing tones, that one is 
never inattentive. This is not rare among conversers, 
but it is rare among speakers. A speaker, however, 
of this kind might deliver himself of a statement as 
dull as the one before us w"ithout its dulne's being ob- 
served. He has the power of commanding attention. 

The other way in which such a statement may be 
deprived of its dulness would be by presenting every 
particular of it picturesquely. This would be done 
by going into details, by strong coloring, and gene- 
rally by calling in the aid of the imagination. This 
is the unvarying practice of many preachers whose 
names are well known. It is, however, the last 
method a man of good taste and good judgment 
would have recourse to. Such statements ought to 
be made with precision of thought and in quiet lan- 
guage; if therefore they are decked out with the 
flowers of rhetoric, then wrong emphasis of particu- 
lars, disproportion, and exaggeration must result. 



WHAT WE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 181 

In this case the speaker is not preaching or arguing, 
but is merely delivering himself of so much decorated 
rhodomontade. This is what cannot be done by a 
Minister of the Word who respects his subject, his 
hearers, or himself. 

What then is to be done ? Each must decide for 
himself, whether he will risk wearying his audience by 
such statements, or whether he vail compress them 
into half-a-dozen lines, or drop them altogether, and 
set before his hearers the point under discussion only 
in the light of their own experience, or in some such 
way as will bring them to take a personal interest in 
it. 

The other observation I have to make upon the 
foregoing sermon is, that it calls our attention to the 
very important question of how the Gospel is to be 
preached with reference to those circumstances of the 
present day which are the reverse of the circumstan- 
ces of the times when it was first preached by Jesus 
Christ and His Apostles. It is impossible to shut our 
ears to the tone which the New Testament emits. 
The gloomiest view is taken of human life. ISTor was 
it possible that it could have been otherwise. Con- 
sider for how many centuries, with how short inter- 
vals, the unhappy people to whom it was addressed 
had been trodden under foot of the heathen, Syrians, 
Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. 

It is almost impossible for persons living in these 
16 



182 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

times to form an adequate conception of tlie wretch- 
edness, the mental and moral degradation that this 
had made the normal condition of the people. Pro- 
bably no people except the Jews could have possessed 
sufficient vitality to have survived it. And it is very 
possible that the schooling of these long grievous cen- 
turies may have given to the race the power which it 
has since shown of bearing up under oppression. We 
may suppose, that for generation after generation 
those who had not this power would have a tendency 
to die out; and so this power might become a charac- 
teristic of the race. We can understand what so 
great and so long-continued suffering must have made 
the traditions of the time when the Gospel was first 
preached. And the facts of the times were in keep- 
ing with the traditions: suffering, degradation, sad- 
ness every where, and no prospect of any improve- 
ment. There was no gleam of hope in any direction. 
The iron had entered into their souls. Who could 
ever hope to see the world-wide, the omnipresent, and 
almighty despotism of Rome broken from off their 
necks? They dreamt of a deliverer, but hardly be- 
lieved in one. And when Jesus came (Himself a man 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief). He could hold 
out no hope of any relief from this dreadful lot. They 
must go on suffering; and even worse things were in 
store for them. In the world they must have tribu- 
lation. This must continue, and the climax of 



WHAT WE ARE TO SEEK IN LIFE. 183 

wretchedness would be reached in the indescribable 
horrors that would attend the destruction of their 
holy citj. And then would begin the endless and 
numberless miseries of the state in which they would 
neither have a place nor nation. This will quite ex- 
plain the sadness that pervaded the first preaching of 
the Gospel, and which has been expressed by saying 
that it is the religion of sorrow and of the sorrowful. 

The conditions of life however amongst ourselves at 
the present day are, in the respects I have been re- 
ferring to, the very reverse of what they were in 
those times amongst the Jewish people. Every Eng- 
lishman has for many generations and centuries stood 
with an unabashed face before the world and towards 
his fellow-countrymen. Our material prosperity is 
5uch as the world has never before witnessed. All 
the causes of distress that pressed upon the Jew and 
bore him down to the ground have been removed from 
us. They are unknown amongst us, and in their stead 
we have, in overflowing abundance, all that in these 
respects the heart of man can desire. 

The question then arises, is that Christianity which 
was addressed to a suffering and unhappy world ap- 
plicable, and if so how, to a world that is steeped in 
prosperity and happiness? When patience, and re- 
signation, and submission are preached to us, it almost 
produces the feeling that we are in a position where 
these graces are not needed in the sense in which they 



184 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

vfere needed by those who heard the words of Christ 
and His Apostles. Thankfulness, moderation, and a 
right use of opportunities appear the more appropri- 
ate topics for exhortation to us. And this, I think, 
makes us feel the importance of the subject of the 
foregoing sermon, that is, of the example of the 
Apostle. If the people who occupy our streets of 
palaces and our country houses are not called to suffer 
as the Apostle and his countrymen were, they are 
assuredly called by the very circumstances in which 
God has placed them to work as the Apostle did. And 
they can work under far more easy and encouraging 
circumstances. There is a wide field every where 
open before them. By working, I mean honestly en- 
deavoring at the sacrifice of personal ease, and at pe- 
cuniary cost, according to their opportunities and abil- 
ities, to do good. And what happiness can be greater 
than that the man is entitled to who knows that he 
has made others wiser, or better, or happier than they 
would have been without him ; and who feels, as he is 
leaving the world, that it is in these respects his 
debtor ? 



SERMON III 



THE RETURN OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 



Luke xi. 24-26. 



<'Wlien the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, be walketh 
through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I 
will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he 
cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and 
taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and 
they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is 
worse than the first." 

Several of our Lord's parables, as for instance 
those of the laborers hired at different hours, and of 
the man who built a vineyard and let it out to hus- 
bandmen, have very evidently two applications : one 
to a particular passage in the history of the Jewish 
nation ; the other to individuals in all ages. So it is 
with the parable before us. Its primary application 
is to the chosen people. At the preaching of the 
Baptist and of Jesus they were much moved. They 
showed some desire for a closer walk with God. But 

16^^ 185 



186 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

they eventually fell back into a worse state than they 
had ever been before; for they rejected and crucified 
Jesus. 

This makes clear what its meaning is when it is ad- 
dressed to the cases of individuals. It presents to us 
a series of pictures in the progress of the man who 
dies in his sins. In the first we behold him as a man 
possessed with an unclean spirit. This picture inti- 
mates nothing of the earlier stages of his course. We 
are told nothing of the steps which brought him to 
this state. Neither are we told any thing of the form 
and character of the wickedness with which he is 
possessed. The forms of wickedness are infinitely 
various. The particular feature of sin that is indi- 
cated in the picture, and which is true of all kinds of 
sin, is that it is working in the man like madness. 
The madman is the victim of a will which is not the 
offspring of reason, but is opposed to reason; and 
which is not in conformity to, but opposed to self- 
interest. And yet it so masters the man that he 
makes no effort to resist it. If the voice of reason 
could command, it would be against sin. If the heart 
that has had experience of the miseries of sin could 
choose, it too would be against sin. But in the 
habitual sinner both the reason and the heart are in 
bondage. The unclean, the mad, the senseless spirit 
has got possession of them and rules over them. Ifc 
urges the man on to his detriment, to his misery, to 



THE RETURN OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 187 

his ruin^^' You cannot in any other way account for 
his actions. He is possessed. He is not in his right 
mind. 

And now we pass to the next picture. There are 
cases in which the cloud does not rest uninterruptedly 
on the mind of the lunatic. It is drifted away for a 
season : there is again an interval of light. Just so 
is it with the sinner. Something occurs that for a 
time shakes and appears to overthrow the power of 
his tyrant sin. God in his inexhaustible mercy is ever 
bringing this about in many ways. He recalls to the 
thoughts and feelings of the sinner the impressions 
and lessons he received in early youth from a wise and 
good father, or from an affectionate and religious 
mother. Or He overtakes him with some deserved 
chastisement : or He surprises him with some unde- 
served mercy; or He brings it about that he should 
witness some appalling occurrence. God is ever 
working by some dispensation or other on the heart 
and the mind of the sinner ; and with apparent suc- 
cess in the case before us. The unclean spirit has 
gone out of the man. He endeavors to walk before 
God in his right mind. Was he profligate or a 
drunkard? He loathes his former profligate and 
drunken companions. Was he a Sabbath-breaker ? 
He now has delight in being on God's day in God's 
house. Was he revengeful and malicious? He now 
has a pleasure in seeking to be at peace with those 



188 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

whom he had formerly hated. Was he unfair and 
dishonest ? He is now endeavoring to make restitu- 
tion to those he had wronged. The misleading irra- 
tional will has been overcome within him. The sight 
is full of promise. 

But as we look on the picture that follows, the hope 
that had been formed within us is shaken. We behold 
the unclean spirit that had gone out of the man, 
which we had looked to see transformed into a right 
spirit, and able to lead the man on to a good and 
peaceful life, leading him "through dry places;" so 
that though rest is sought, none is found.^ This in- 
cident is described with local propriety. In that hot 
and dry climate there can be no coolness, no re- 
freshing air unless water be present. These things 
can only be found in the valley, by the streamlet's 
side. There the turf is green, the flowers sweet and 

' It is obvious to remark that we do not express ourselves on 
this subject in the fashion of the parable, which of course was 
the fashion of expression used by those to whom the parable was 
addressed. They regarded "the unclean spirit" as having a sep- 
arate existence from that of the man. It comes and goes at its 
own will. It returns eventually, because it is dissatisfied with the 
separation; and the man becomes its helpless and unresisting 
victim. With us " the unclean spirit" is a condition of the man's 
own spirit. He has powers within his reach sufficient for altering 
this spirit. According therefore to our form of expression, it is 
the man himself who expels the unclean spirit, and who, having 
done so, wanders through dry places seeking rest and finding 
none; and eventually relapses into his former state. 



THE RETURN OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 189 

gay; the trees give shade ; the air revives. But the 
half-recovered lunatic wanders in dry places, and 
therefore cannot but miss the cool refreshment, and 
the rest he is in search of. He is still exposed to the 
distressing glare, and the withering heat. 

It often happens that the sinner who is beginning 
to fight against sin places himself in similar circum- 
stances. He is entering on the most difiicult work 
that can be undertaken by man in this world. The 
stream of his life having for many years flowed on in 
a wrong direction, he is now endeavoring to make it 
flow in an opposite course. He has to change the 
Ethiopian's skin, and the leopard's spots. The war 
in his mind has commenced. The good of his nature 
that had been subdued, has now risen up against the 
evil that had subdued it. But the strong man within, 
well equipped and armed, is holding his ground at 
many points. If then the would-be soldier of Christ 
is to come ofi* victorious, he must be brave, and per- 
severing, and wise. 

Some there are who think the grace of God is to do 
every thing, and to do it in a moment. No such 
thing. If God's almighty power were all His nature 
He might do so. But having other attributes He 
does not do so. He looks on, and beholds the con- 
flict. He approves, and is a fellow-worker with the 
man. But the man must do much himself. And one 
thing that he must do is that he must act wisely; and 



190 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

he will be doing very unwisely, for he will be bring- 
ing discouragement on himself, if he seeks for rest 
"in dry places." 

Perhaps he has no conception of any feeling 
towards God excepting that of fear. He never rises 
to the idea that God is his Father in heaven, and that 
he is God's child. He does not see that God is love, 
and that what he is called to is himself to love. If a 
man see this, though he may not have attained to it, 
he will be encouraged by the knowledge of it. He 
will feel that this high state is open to him. But 
those whose conceptions do not go beyond fear, are in 
"a dry place," where they can find no rest for their 
souls. 

Or he may be devoting himself to worldly pursuits 
or worldly enjoyments. I know that neither the pur- 
suits nor the enjoyments of this world are absolutely 
and in themselves wrong. What is wrong is to devote 
one's self to them, to give them the best of our 
thoughts and of our affections; whereas there are 
higher things, the things of the soul, and of God, 
things whereby others may be benefited and ourselves 
lifted into a higher region of thought and feeling, 
which ought to be sought first. To invert the com- 
parative value of the two, to put first what ought to 
be second, is again to seek rest in "a dry place," 
where it cannot be found. 

But the driest of all dry places in which to seek 



THE RETURN OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 191 

it, is the retention of some sin. An unclean spirit 
is cast out in order to pacify the conscience, and to 
obtain peace from God. But it is impossible that 
these objects can be attained if a place in the heart 
be still allowed to another imclean spirit. And yet 
we see this being done every day. Violence of tem- 
per, or an uncharitable way of thinking of others, or 
arrogance, or covetousness, or envy, is retained while 
something else is given up. How unmerciful would 
God be, if He allowed these persons to find rest unto 
their souls ! 

The picture again changes; but we were almost 
prepared for what we now behold. He — the parable 
says the unclean spirit, but it will be more intelli- 
gible for us to say the man — returns to his house 
whence he had come out. This was not a sudden 
thought, but the result of a deliberation consequent 
on his finding no rest. He looks in again at his old 
haunts. He there finds everything ready to receive 
him, and very inviting — empty, swept, and garnished. 
Something seems to say to him, ''Enter again, and as 
of old every thing you desire shall be ministered to 
you." He does not resist. He enters. All the 
progress he had made is lost. The relapse is com- 
plete. Everyone of us must in some matter or other 
have exhibited in himself such a picture as this. Ke- 
member that two reasons are suggested — that he found 
no rest in his new ways of life, and that he allowed 



192 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

his thoughts to go back to his old ways. He set his 
hand to the plough, but finding the work distasteful 
he looked back again to his former state of idleness ; 
and then he gave over work. He expected an impos- 
sibility ; that the new way would be immediately easy 
and pleasant. As well might you expect to learn any 
art or trade by wishing for a knowledge of it ; or to 
find an oak-tree the growth of a night. Perseverance 
and prayer were the means by which the old man was 
to be exorcised, and the new man formed within him. 

But the history is not yet all told ; one more scene 
is presented to us, and that is the final one. No 
further struggle is made. The surrender is complete. 
The returning unclean spirit goes and takes to him- 
self seven others, more wicked than himself; and 
they are all allowed to enter into the man's heart and 
dwell there. His last state is worse than his first ; 
and so he ends. An army that has been thoroughly 
beaten and routed cannot renew the conflict. It has 
been demoralised and weakened by the defeat, and 
the enemy has become relatively much stronger. 

The case resembles those of whom we are told 
*' that it is impossible for them who were once en- 
lightened ; and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and 
were made partakers of the Holy Ghost; and have 
tasted the good word of God ; and the powers of the 
world to come ; if they shall fall away, to renew them 
again to repentance; sieeing they crucify the Son of 



THE RETURN OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 193 

God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." And 
again : " If we sin wilfully after that we have received 
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sin, but a certain looking for of judgment, 
and of fiery indignation." And so says St. Peter : 
" For it had been better for them not to have known 
the way of righteousness, than, after having known 
it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto 
them. But it happened to them according to the true 
proverb ; The dog is turned to his own vomit again, 
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the 
mire." 

What can be more appalling! But I cannot leave 
the subject in this position. As a minister of the 
Word of God I must say that that Word contains 
statements that counteract the sense of dead hope- 
lessness, and of blank despair which what has just 
been said would leave on the mind. How much, for 
instance, is there in the parable of the prodigal son to 
tell us of the inexhaustible, the infinite mercy, nay, 
love of God. And does not the idea pervade all 
Scripture, that our Father in heaven is not willing 
that any of His children should perish, but that all 
should come to Him, and that all should be saved ? 
And we are told that the time will come when the Son 
shall have given up every thing to the Father; and 
so this dispensation shall have come to an end. And 
if it shall have come to an end, then we cannot believe 
17 



194 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

that suffering and sin will remain as a residuum of it; 
for we need not believe that they existed before it, 
and independently of it. At all events, we are told 
that ''God will be all in all." And if He shall be all 
in all, then there can be no more sin or suffering; or 
any thing to oppose itself to His will. 

The distress of mind which arises at considering the 
Scripture that has been before us, must have been in- 
tended to arise. As this is its legitimate effect, it 
must have been intended. But neither may we forget 
the opposite conclusions which several particular 
statements of God's Word were equally intended to 
leave on the mind. And if any find a difficulty in 
reconciling these opposite, though I think not contra- 
dictory, truths, they must hold them both. When 
they think of themselves, they may dwell on the first. 
When they think of God they must dwell on the last. 
We know little now. We shall be able to reconcile 
them when we know all things even as we are now 
known of God. 



Ohservations on the foregoing Sermon. 

It is a difficult task to give in a sermon a continu- 
ous comment on a narrative used as text; especially 
when, as is generally the case with our Lord's parables, 
it is impossible to add any thing either to the clearness 



THE RETURN OF THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT. 195 

or forcibleness of the original. The reader must de- 
cide whether to his mind any thing has been gained 
in the case of the one before us by dividing the story 
into what may be compared to the acts of a drama, 
and endeavoring to connect each with the personal 
experience of the hearers. 

I endeavor in the latter part of the sermon to avoid 
a mistake which many sermon-writers and commenta- 
tors are apt to fall into ; the mistake of supposing that 
their work is done when they have explained the 
meaning of the text and founded some exhortation 
upon it. It often happens that a very important part 
of their work still remains to be done, that of showing 
the relation in which the meaning of their text stands 
to other parts of Scripture which have a bearing 
upon it. 



SERMON lY. 



THE CENTURION OF C^SAREA. 



Acts x. 1, 2. 
"There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a cen- 
turion of tlie band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one 
that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the 
people, and prayed to God alway." 

This is the character given of the man who was the 
first to leave heathenism, and enter the Church of 
Christ. Some of us, as we heard it read, may have 
thought that it was the description of an ordinarily 
good and religious man ; and of what might have been 
expected to be the conduct of such a one. And I 
shall endeavor to show why it is so ; and that there is 
nothing accidental about any one of the particulars of 
his character, or of his conduct. We shall understand 
the man when we have made out the reasons that ex- 
isted for what we are told of him, and seen the con- 
nection of the several statements. 

We have just heard,^ as the chapter from which our 

'This sermon was preached on Dec. 10, 1865, on which day 
Acts X. is read as the Second Lesson for the Morning Service. 

196 



THE CENTURION OF CtESAREA. 197 

text is taken was read, that this first Gentile convert 
Nvas admitted to the Christian Church by the Apostle 
Peter; and we saw that he would have been so un- 
willing to have done this that a miraculous interposi- 
tion was needed to persuade him. And even after he 
had been commanded by a vision to undertake the 
work, he speaks in an apologetic tone of what he had 
come to do. Eight years had passed since his Lord 
had sent him forth to establish His kingdom, but Peter 
tells us he still rigidly observed the ceremonial law of 
Moses — he had never eaten any thing which according 
to that law was common or unclean. He asserts that 
it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep 
company with, or to come unto one of another nation ; 
and he enters into explanations to justify himself for 
being engaged in receiving a Gentile into the Christian 
Church. Compare this with the way in which his 
fellow-Apostle Paul speaks of the same occurrence in 
the Scripture you have just heard read as the Epistle 
for the day.^ He is all eagerness to justify the ad- 
mission of the Gentiles; and to show from the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Dispensation that their admission had 
been originally, and all along intended. How hesita- 
tingly does St. Peter make up his mind to receive 
Cornelius ; how gladly would St. Paul have welcomed 
him ! Whence this difference ? Some perhaps may 

2 Pvom. XV. 4. The Epistle for the Second Sunday in Advent. 

17* 



198 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

be in the habit of supposing that in matters of this 
kind there neither was, nor could have been any dif- 
ference between two Apostles. But what is thus in 
the Scriptures for this present service forced on our 
attention will correct us in this mistake. We may 
feel a little surprise at the discovery, and even a 
slight^ reluctance to acknowledge it; but as the sur- 
prise and reluctance were the result of a mistake, the 
discovery and acknowledgment of the. mistake will be 
of advantage to us. We shall then see, what will im- 
part a far more life-like interest to what we read in 
God's Word, that a man's having been called to become 
an Apostle did not obliterate his natural character; 
but that he became an Apostle, retaining the char- 
acter he had previously possessed. See the character 
respectively of St. Peter and of St. Paul as reflected 
by their conduct in reference to the admission of the 
Gentiles. St. Peter evidently was a man who was 
capable of receiving new ideas, for he had received 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; but he was at the same 
time a man who was incapable of giving up old ideas, 
for he could not abandon the ceremonial law in which 
he had been brought up, although the purpose of that 
law had now been served in bringing him to Christ. 
St. Paul, on the other hand, was a man who felt so 
strongly whatever he accepted, that he rejected what- 
ever was opposed to it, however dearly he might pre- 
viously have cherished it. When his faith was that of 



THE CENTURION OF CiESAREA. 199 

a Jew he would have destroyed all belief in Christ. 
No sooner was he converted to Christ than he gave 
himself up wholly to preaching the faith he for- 
merly had persecuted. The observances of the law 
had no longer any attraction for him. There was no 
reservation in his feelings. What he felt he felt with 
all his heart. What he did he did with all his might. 
He would straightway have the old typical and cere- 
monial observances abolished utterly ; and the Gospel, 
pure and simple, preached to every creature. To 
suppose that all the instruments we find employed by 
God in the establishment of the Gospel were brought 
precisely to the same state of mind, renders it impos- 
sible for us to understand much that is recorded in 
the sacred page itself; and also deprives us of one 
fertile source of interest in reading it — that which 
arises from the contemplation of the varieties of human 
character and feelings as they exhibit themselves in 
the working out of the great purpose. 

But what I have now to speak to you about is the 
description given of Cornelius, and how that came to 
be the character of the man who was selected as the 
first-fruits to Christ of all the Gentile world. 

We are told first of all that he was " a devout 
man." The thought probably that is called up in the 
minds of many as they hear this said is that of devout- 
ness as we see it around us, and feel it in ourselves, 
that is to say, wo think of a man being devout as a 



200 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

Christian. We think of Christian devoutness. To 
some it may even sound strange and novel to have 
any other kind suggested to them. But devoutness, 
or a sense of the existence of God, and of the relation 
in which man stands towards Him, is one of the con- 
stituent elements of the common mental or spiritual 
nature of man. In some it is stronger, and more en- 
lightened than in others — that is all the difference. 
It exists in all men, to speak generally. In all times 
it has existed. It has been found, and is still to be 
found, among all races of men. It is an instinct of 
the heart and of the reason of man. As the Apostle 
reminds us, God revealed Himself to men's under- 
standings by His works and His dispensations. Of 
the heathen especially he says this. The fruitful 
seasons God sent appealed to their feelings of grati- 
tude and of dependence. And long before the Apos- 
tle's time it had been noted that there was a voice in 
the starry firmament which had gone out into all 
lands, and had been heard by all people ; and which 
they had understood as speaking to them of God. 
Into whatever heathen land you may go, in every 
city you will find costly temples raised to express the 
devoutness of its inhabitants. So was it of old time. 
And now well-nigh all that meets the eye of bygone 
empires and states of civilization are the remains of 
their magnificent temples. These are standing wit- 
nesses, and witnesses that cannot deceive, of the de- 



THE CENTURION OF C^SAKEA. 201 

voutness of all races of men in all times and places. 
We know the mind of Cornelius's countrymen, and we 
know that devoutness was a very large element in the 
constitution of their inner nature. 

But we may go further than the contemplation 
of the outward manifestations of this universal senti- 
ment. True, it is not religion as we understand re- 
ligion, but it is the foundation of religion, so much so 
that religion could not exist without it any more than 
a temple could be raised without a foundation, or a 
tree grow and be kept alive without its roots. The 
sense we have of God, and of the relation in which 
we stand towards Him, is the foundation, the root of 
religion. Take it away and there is nothing to work 
upon, nothing to rest upon. Or we may look at it in 
another way, as the seed, the germ out of which, 
under the favoring and progressive circumstances God 
ordains, religion, even that of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, is in fulness of time developed ; for God or- 
dains suitable circumstances for the growth of reli- 
gion just as lie does for the growth of a plant. 

You will not then understand the nature of man, 
or the history of religion, or the character of this 
man, and both of the former throw light upon the 
latter, unless you understand that devoutness is an at- 
tribute of man, and belongs to the heathen as well as 
to Christians. Now Cornelius had been devout as a 
heathen : indeed it was this disposition, while he was 



202 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

still in heathenism, that brought him to entertain the 
consideration of a purer and higher form of religion 
than that of his own country in which he had been 
brought up. You must separate in him the idea of 
devoutness from the idea of the approximations he 
made to the highest and purest religion. The former 
existed before the latter in his mind, just as it had 
done in the world. It was the former that brought 
him to the latter. And having done this great work 
for him, it did not leave him, or die out of his mind. 
On the contrary ; it became purified and exalted, and 
a still more vivifying and active principle. His faith 
in Christ would without its continuance have been but 
ineffective and dead ; while with it that faith lived, 
and moved, and had being. But again I say the two 
things are quite distinct. Devoutness is one of the. 
ingredients of man's nature that is common to all ; it 
is not only a necessary Christian quality, but it is also 
a good heathen quality. The first Gentile convert to 
Christ while still in heathenism had been a devout 
man. 

And now we pass to another stage in the formation 
of his religious character. "He gave much alms to 
the people." This was not a heathen, assuredly not 
a Roman practice. Heathenism, and especially Ro- 
man heathenism, was intensely selfish. It was the 
character of the Government and of the people. They 
respected power and wealth ; they had no commisera- 



THE CENTURION OF CiSSAREA. 203 

tion for the suftering and the abject. Woe was with 
them the lot of the fallen. Man need not trouble 
himself to pity those v^hom God had forsaken. The 
Roman never founded institutions for the relief of the 
distressed in mind, body, or estate. With reference 
to this particular compare the past with the present. 
Perhaps in no city of the world of the same size as 
modern Christian Rome, and in no other country in 
the world with a population equal to that of modern 
Christian Italy, are there so many who live by alms. 
In this we have an abuse of one of the great principles 
of Christianity; but in heathen Rome it was most 
markedly the very reverse of this. In that hard- 
hearted city the beggar was little known in the time 
of Cornelius. The word so seldom occurs in the lit- 
erature of that age that the character itself must have 
been very rare. This could not have been because 
there were none in a state of destitution, no abjects 
(they must have abounded in such a city), but because 
it would have been useless for the abject and the des- 
titute to have appealed to feelings that did not exist. 
How then came this Roman captain to have acquired 
the habit of giving much alms ? 

There is no difficulty in answering the question. 
It was from his acquaintance with that religion which 
through Moses, David, and the prophets God had 
given to the people among whom Cornelius had been 
for some time residing. "He was a just man who 



204 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

feared God," that is now, the God of Israel, "and 
was of good report among all the nation of the Jews." 
It is the Master who tells us, and we find it laid down 
in the law itself, that the highest regard we can prac- 
tically feel for others, is just the very principle of the 
law ; for it is in the Book of Leviticus that we first 
meet with the great saying, which Jesus recalls in 
His conversation with the lawyer, "that thou should- 
est love thy neighbor as thyself." Cornelius was now 
well acquainted with this law and its principles. He 
had received it as a revelation of God, and from God. 
He had formed his religion from it. The Jewish law, 
in a way in which no heathen law ever had done, 
charged itself w^ith the care of the orphan and the 
widow, of those who had none to help them, of the 
poor, the maimed, the destitute, and the stranger. 
We see this every where in the Law, the Psalms, and 
the Prophets. Cornelius's idea therefore of the duty 
of man towards his fellow-man, regarded as a matter 
of religion, was, in conformity with this teaching, to 
love his fellow-man, and gladly to do for those who 
needed his assistance, all that love can suggest. This 
is the principle which fulfils the Law. 

That this was the principle of the Jewish Law well- 
nigh alone proves its divine origin. You must recol- 
lect that that Law was promulgated in a rude and vio- 
lent age, and intended for a rude and unmanageable 
people, insomuch that many of its enactments were 



THE CENTURION OF CJ3SAIIEA. 205 

adapted to such a state of things. How marvellous 
then that this principle of love, so widely at variance 
with the tone and with the circumstances of the times, 
and so immeasurably in advance of the legislation and 
of the feeling of the most polished nations of the 
heathen world, should have been made its governing 
idea. And now this principle coming to Cornelius 
through the channel of the Jewish Law, commended 
itself to him as the rule of his feelings towards, and 
of his dealings with, his fellow-men. The very word 
I last used contained an idea absolutely new to him. 
He had not been brought up to regard men, consid- 
ered as men, in the light of his fellows. He, a 
Roman, had not thought the inhabitants of subject 
nations, or that part of the population that was in 
slavery, or the poor of his own country, as in any 
sense his fellows, as having claims upon him, and as 
entitled to be treated by him with consideration and 
respect. But now the hard selfish arrogance of the 
Roman was abandoned, and his feelings and practice 
had risen to the level of the Jewish Law. To be mer- 
ciful, to be compassionate, to give, he felt to be his 
duty to man as required by God. ''He gave much 
alms to the poor. 

His devoutness, then, and his alms-giving mark two 

stages in his religious progress : his devoutness the 

stage when he was religious as a good heathen might 

be ; his alms-giving when he had superadded to the de- 

18 



206 EXTEMPOEAKY PREACHING. 

voutness of a good heathen the religious sense of 
duty to others which the Jewish Law prescribed. 

To each of these stages is appended a single illus- 
tration which we must notice as we pass along in the 
consideration of this good man's character. He was 
a devout man, ''who feared God with all his house;" 
and the subsequent parts of the history show more 
than this, for we have indications of others beside those 
of his own house having been influenced by his devout- 
ness. ''The devout soldier," who we know was 
among those who waited on him continually, and 
whom he sent with his two servants to Joppa to sum- 
mon Peter, may have been intended to be included 
among "those of his house." But to meet Peter he 
invites his kinsfolk and acquaintance, who he knows 
are in the same state of mind, and who, we cannot 
but think, must have been brought into it by his in- 
fluence. Real devoutness, since we all of us have al- 
ready some amount of it in our nature, is very infec- 
tious. Not only does it pass from one mind to other 
minds, because those other minds are predisposed by 
what they have of their own to admit it, but it con- 
sciously makes the effort thus to spread and propagate 
itself. And this is an indication of true devoutness, 
that this effort is made, and that it is made success- 
fully. A devout man will generally have, as Corne- 
lius had, a devout household, and- devout kinsfolk and 
acquaintance. 



THE CENTURION OF C^SAREA. 207 

The illustration "which is appended to the descrip- 
tion of the second stage of his religious progress, is 
that he prayed to God always. This is inseparably 
connected with his giving much alms. For, remark, 
it is not merely that he prayed — he had done that in 
his state of devout heathenism — but that he prayed to 
God ; the one true God, by whom he had been taught 
to love his neighbor as himself. His desire was to 
commune with that Being from whom he had learnt 
this most blessed principle, and so to drink more 
largely of His Spirit. Each implies the other. If 
he gave much alms, he would pray to God always; 
and if he prayed to God always, he would give much 
alms. 

But to proceed to the third and last stage of his 
character. This devout man who had brought others 
to fear God, — this man who gave much alms and 
prayed to God always, — had still one step to take. 
But it may be said what more could he have needed? 
Is there not enough of religion in what has been 
already said of him? Is he not already all that a re- 
ligious man can desire to be? Does any reasonable 
want still remain unsatisfied ? Yes : the greatest need, 
the most pressing want of all that religion is con- 
cerned with, has still to be supplied. Vv^hat he wants 
is precisely that which all religions, more or less dimly, 
or more or less distinctly, aim at. He wants that 
which all the altars, all the temples., and all the ser* 



208 . EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

vices throughout the world were designed as instru- 
ments for attaining, but which none, not even the sa- 
crifices and services of the Jewish Temple, could com- 
pletely supply. He wants something that will meet 
and remove the sense of sin, of unworthiness before 
God, of alienation from Him, even of contradiction to 
Him. He wants a sense of pardon, of acceptance, of 
reconciliation. This can be obtained only through 
what Peter has to communicate to him ; the Gospel of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, "through whom 
alone we obtain remission of our sins;" Christ, the 
Saviour, was what Peter preached to him. We have 
the narrative of what passed on the occasion; we 
know what Peter said. He spoke of Christ, and of 
Christ only, as the Great Deliverer that had been ex 
pected. And we know in what way Cornelius received 
what Peter said of Christ. 

Here then was a third and distinct state in the 
religious progress of this first Gentile convert. There 
was now superadded to the two conditions of mind he 
had previously arrived at, that at which they had 
aimed, and that for which in the religious progress of 
the human race they had been the preparation — a 
sense of forgiveness and acceptance, accompanied 
with, nay almost arising out of, a clear perception of 
the goodness and loving-kindness of our Father in 
heaven ; a far clearer perception than was possible 
under the old dispensation, where God was revealed 



THE CENTUKION OF C^SAREA. 209 

chiefly as the Lawgiver and Judge of a rude and stub- 
born people. And consequently there was now made 
a fuller and more direct appeal than was formerly pos- 
sible to the good and loving qualities God has im- 
planced in the heart; and the faith that works by 
love, not obedience extorted from fear, became the 
principle of the spiritual life. This was the wisdom 
that came down from above. It brought into the fore- 
ground a gentler and more heavenly view of duty, 
one element of which was that sense of universal 
brotherhood in which we see even the Apostle Peter 
had been so deficient. This was what Cornelius, and 
after him the civilized world, gained by rising to a 
belief in Christ the Light and the Saviour of the 
world, for He cannot be our Saviour any more than 
He can be our Light, without our knowing and feeling 
it, and being assured of it. 

And what I have been endeavoring to set before 
you is, my good friends, not merely an interesting 
picture of a bygone state of things. What passed so 
many hundred years ago in the mind and heart of 
this Centurion of the Italian band, is a picture of 
what passes just as distinctly in our own minds and 
hearts. Every one of us who is in the habit of 
coming here to God's House is more or less devout. 
That it is that impels us to come. Some of us give 
large alms to the poor. Some also have arrived at 
that full assurance of faith, which gives thom ''hope, 

18* 



210 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

and peace, andjojin believing." But some stop at 
the first state. It seems to them like religion. 
They fear and respect God. Kut, my friends, you 
wlio have gone no further than this state are not yet 
Christians. You have advanced no further than the 
good heathen had. This you may think a hard 
saying. But look at the history of Cornelius's re- 
ligion, and you will understand what is meant. If you 
are pained at the statement, it will not have been said 
unprofitably. There are others again, and these are 
a very numerous class, who go no further than the 
second stage. Here they feel sure is practical re- 
ligion. Here is palpable proof of their having sub- 
mitted themselves to the teaching of God. They are 
keeping the Law of Love even as expounded and en- 
larged by Jesus Christ. They are doing good. They 
are diminishing the misery that is around them. They 
visit the fatherless and the widow in their distress. 
They feed the hungry ; they clothe the naked. This 
is practical religion. But, my friends, this is only the 
stage which Cornelius had reached when his knowledge 
did not go beyond an acquaintance with the Law of 
the first Dispensation. If this be enough, then was it 
superfluous that Jesus Christ should have come, and 
taught, and sufi'ered. You must go up higher. There 
is a third, the last and crowning stage. You must go 
to Christ. You must learn of Him. You must cast 
your burden upon Him. So shall you find rest unto 



THE CENTURION OF C^SAREA. 211 

your soul. That will be a state in which your love 
for Him who so loved you as to give Himself for you, 
will have cast out fear. You will be conscious of 
God's love for you ; and you will no longer be con- 
scious of the existence of any bar to your loving 
Him. This I trust is the state of some among us. 
We cannot say who are Christ's in this sense. Nor 
can we say who among us are resting on the heathen, 
and who on the Judaical form of religiousness. Each 
must try and examine himself as in the sight of God 
who knows the heart. 



Observations on the foregoing Sermon, 

I wrote the foregoing sermon for this work on the 
Monday after I preached it. I had previously to 
preaching it made only a mental study of what I was 
to say. I have put it on paper for the purpose of 
showing, if possible, how analysis, and its opposite, 
comprehensiveness of view, and how, too, historical 
matter, may be used in order to give interest and 
distinctiveness to a familiar subject ; and this to such 
a degree as to enable the preacher to bring home his 
discourse in an intelligible and forcible manner to the 
understandings and consciences of the congregation. 
By analysis, I here mean the distinction drawn be- 



212 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

tween the three states of the religious heathen, the 
religious Jew, and the Christian ; by comprehensiveness 
of view, the reference made to the manner in which 
the religious sentiment shows itself in all ages and 
nations ; by historical matter, the reference made to 
the Jewish law and to Roman history. 

I have also another motive for giving it just as I 
preached it. I had intended to say something about 
the proof my subject gives us, fortified by that of the 
other Centurion, whose faith was greater than that 
which Jesus had found in any in Israel, that even the 
profession of a Roman soldier in the tributary province 
of Judea, those whom John advised to be content with 
their pay, and not to accuse any falsely, might be 
sanctified by religion unto a discipline for the practice 
of duty both to God and man. This was what I had 
intended. But being struck by the indications which 
the Scriptures read in the Service supplied of the 
difi'erence in feeling between the Apostles Peter and 
Paul on the very subject I was about to speak upon, 
the admission of the Gentiles to the Church, I thought 
it better not to lose the opportunity presented for 
pointing out this difi'erence. It was the 10th of De- 
cember, and the second Sunday in Advent ; and the 
difi'erence in feeling between St. Peter in the second 
lesson, the 10th of the Acts of the Apostles, and St. 
Paul in the Epistle, from the 15th of his Epistle to 
the Romans, was most obvious. I thought it better 



THE CENTURION OF C^SAREA. 213 

to drop something I had intended to say, and instead 
to call the attention to this point, not merely because 
it was closely connected with the fact I was about to 
speak upon, but because at the same time it presented 
an excellent opportunity for saying a few words on a 
subject which throws some light upon the nature of 
Inspiration ; and which besides gives a more life-like 
interest to what we read in God's Word. 

Now it is plain that I could have made no use of 
this opportunity, which was of much value both exe- 
getically, and because it connected the sermon very 
closely with the foregoing parts of the Service, if I had 
been a reader of written sermons. 

But as my object is to give my younger brethren 
hints for the proper composition of sermons, I will 
further remark that my having done this injured the 
proper effect of the sermon, because it introduced 
what was in reality irrelevant matter ; that is, matter 
which was only connected with my subject, and not 
necessary for its elucidation ; and so far it was de- 
structive of that oneness of purpose which ought to 
pervade all that is said in a sermon. The advantage 
however of saying it outweighed this disadvantage, 
and so I introduced it. And remark that it was out 
of place not only because it was unnecessary for the 
elucidation of the subject, but also because, being in 
itself a point of much interest, it impressed itself too 



214 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINQ. 

much on the mind at the expense of the real subject 
of the discourse. 

With respect to the references to history which 
this sermon contains, I would observe that nothing of 
that kind is of any value in what is addressed to un- 
educated persons. As they cannot understand such 
matters, they are only confused and wearied by the 
mention of them. 

In writing this sermon the day after I had preached 
it, I was struck with the difficulty, I almost found it 
the impossibility, of maintaining that continuity of 
thought which comes spontaneously in speaking. 
The length of time required to write a sentence, and 
the attention requisite for the work of the pen, are 
constantly breaking the direct stream of thought, and 
diverting it into side channels. This is worthy of 
being noticed as a disadvantage of writing in com- 
parison with speaking. One's style also in speaking 
is more homogeneous. 

In the foregoing sermon it was necessary to point 
out that the germ of the religious character of the 
Centurion was his devoutness; but the word is re- 
peated too often, and too much is made of the fact. 
I leave this uncorrected, that it may illustrate a 
fault. 



SERMON Y. 



THE CENTURION OF CAPERNAUM. 



Matthew viii, 10. 13. 



"When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that 
followed. Verily, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel, 
And Jesus said unto the Centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast 
believed, so be it done unto thee." 

There are four Centurions of whom in the Gospels 
and Acts of the Apostles very honorable mention is 
made. First comes this Centurion of Capernaum, 
whose faith was greater than that of any in Israel. 
He is followed by the Centurion who, being a spec- 
tator of the Crucifixion, declared his belief that He 
who had just expired on the Cross was truly the Son 
of God; a conviction which certainly at that moment 
does not appear to have existed in the mind of any 
one of the disciples. The next was the Centurion 
who was the first of all the Gentile world to be ad- 
mitted to the Church of Christ. Again, it was a 
Centurion who saved the Apostle Paul from being 
thrown out the ship into the sea in the storm off Mel-. 

215 



216 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

ita; an act, the effect of which will for ever be felt in 
the Church to the extent in which it contributed to 
strengthen the Pauline element in the setting forth of 
the Gospel. 

What is told us of these Centurions reminds us, by 
the way, how illiberal and unjust it is to condemn a 
man on account of the profession to which he belongs. 
There are men, in these days even, who speak dispar- 
agingly of those who belong to the profession of 
arms. With how much more reason might this have 
been done of the officers of the Roman army, which 
was very notorious, particularly in subject countries 
such as Judsea then was, for rapacity, arrogance, and 
cruelty ; and yet here are four officers of that army 
conspicuous for piety, for openness to conviction, and 
for a proper sense of duty and humanity, at a time 
when well-nigh every one around them was over- 
powered by superstitious terrors, or had abandoned 
himself to disbelief of all religion. The same re- 
mark must be made of class prejudices. The rich 
think disparagingly of, and distrust the poor; and just 
in the same way do the poor regard the rich. This is 
narrow-minded and sinful. The religiously wise, and 
the worldly wise too, will estimate a man not by con- 
sidering the demerits of others, but by endeavoring to 
ascertain what is the character, but more particularly 
what are the merits of the man himself. It is a mis- 
take to suppose that it shows like wide experience to 



THE CENTURION OF CAPERNAUM. 217 

condemn whole professions and classes. Wide expe- 
rience that has been profited bj teaches that there are 
no two persons alike ; and that even in those whose 
faults are very prominent there is still good to be 
found by all who have the eyes to see it. 

But to come to our Centurion. He had been 
brought up in all the abominations and wickednesses 
of heathenism ; but he has now built a synagogue for 
the promotion of the knowledge of the true God. 
From what darkness had he passed into what marvel- 
lous light ! We can hardly imagine the conflicts that 
must have taken place in his thoughts and feelings, 
while he was breaking away from the immemorial re- 
ligion of his country, under which it had grown from 
a small city into the mistress of the world ; and while 
he was being brought to know God through the sacred 
books of one of the most despised and hated of all 
the subject nations of the empire. But just as the 
wise man will recognize moral worth whatever be the 
calling or class of its possessor, so also will he be dis- 
posed to recognize truth whatever may be the means 
through which it may be presented to him ; and he 
will hold his mind in readiness to abandon falsehood, 
however strongly it may be able to commend itself to 
his feelings, his interests, or his habits of thought. 
The struggle may involve the very tearing out of his 
heart-strings, but in proportion to the nobility of his 



19 



218 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

nature will be the singleness of his desire that the 
truth only should triumph within him. 

But the struggle was now over; and we have to 
see in what it had issued. First look at his liberality. 
To those among whom he was then residing he had 
given a synagogue. This, recent investigations show, 
was a costly act. There are several motives which 
may prompt us to give; I need only notice two 
here. A man may regard giving as a substitute for 
religion ; or genuine religion may impel him to give. 
It is often said depreciatingly, Giving is not religion. 
The reply is, No; but there can be no religion without 
it. The religion of Christ would have men ready to 
give, wherever an occasion presents itself, their 
money, their time, their thought, even their own 
selves. Take the mere giving of money; he that is 
of the spirit of Christ will always find happiness in 
giving, because the promotion of a good object will be 
dearer to him than his money. How many are there 
in these days amongst ourselves who have exactly fol- 
lowed in the steps of this good man's liberality. They 
have assisted in restoring or building some house of 
God, or have carried through the whole work at their 
own sole cost. The thing done gave them greater 
pleasure than the retention of what it cost would have 
given them. 

And now notice this Centurion's piety. It showed 
itself in every way in which it could have been possi- 



THE CENTURION OF CAPERNAUM. 219 

ble for him to make it operative on the minds and 
hearts of others ; that is, in his life and conversation, 
in all that he said and did. But here I confine my 
observations to the one particular just mentioned: he 
had built a synagogue for the Jews of Capernaum. 
Piety, if genuine, must endeavor to propagate itself 
as diffusively as possible. How this was to be done 
by himself must have been the question which above 
all others occupied his mind. Of course it is to be 
propagated most widely through the instrumentality 
of letters. The man for instance who writes a book 
such as that of Thomas d Kempis, On the Imitation 
of Christ; or that of Jeremy Taylor on Holy Living 
and Dying, kindles and feeds the flame of piety in a 
manner which can be effected by no other means. 
He works without being subject to the restrictions of 
time or place. This is the mighty prerogative of the 
highest form of intellectual work. It is unapproach- 
able by any other means. It was not given to this 
Roman Centurion, it is not given to one of a million, 
perhaps not to one in a whole generation of the hu- 
man race to work in this way. But he did what was 
in his power, and what, though at a long interval, 
came next in effectiveness ; he built a house of God, 
a place where the Word of God might week after 
week, year after year, and generation after generation 
be set forth by reading, by exposition, by exhortation. 
He could establish a centre where religious thought 



220 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

and feeling might be cultivated for that neighborhood 
while he was there, and after he was gone: and that 
was what he did, and what he meant to do when he 
built the people of Capernaum a synagogue. 

Observe next the kindliness and considerateness of 
his character. It was this that brought him before 
Jesus, and gave him a place in the records of the Gospel 
history. He is very solicitous for the recovery or 
the relief of a poor grievously palsied slave. In what 
strong contrast does this stand with the feelings that 
were usual among his countrymen on such subjects! 
About their aged or worn-out slaves they were notori- 
ously careless and hard-hearted. They called them 
and treated them as cattle. But this man begs 
the chief people of the city to go to Jesus and 
beseech Him to restore to health the poor creature. 
His feelings are an anticipation of Christian charity. 

Another particular which the history brings out is 
his humility. He deems himself unworthy either of 
going to Jesus, or of having Jesus come to him. 
Here again we shall fall short of a proper view of the 
character and merits of the man if we content our- 
selves with the thought that he possessed those feel- 
ings which we understand by the word humility. As 
in the former particular, we must contrast what he 
had become with the ideas in which he had been 
brought up. His arrogant countrymen had no con- 
ception of this grace. They had no word in their 



THE CENTURION OF CAPERNAUM. 221 

language for it, regarded as an adornment and excel- 
lence of character. With them it was a vice of the 
mind and heart ; something mean and contemptible. 
The fact is, that it can only exist in those who have 
some knowledge of God, and of themselves, and of 
what God requires of them. What now so much be- 
comes him is just what he would formerly have 
shrunk from as un-Roman and despicable. 

And consider too how what in him, because he had 
been brought up in heathenism, and was a Roman 
soldier, had been positive vices were now changed into 
negative excellences. I pass by the probability that 
he had been a man who would have borne malice, and 
would have deceived, but that it was impossible now 
that he could do either. There are other points on 
which we may speak with more certainty. What we 
call debauchery and profligacy were of the very rou- 
tine of heathen life. We know how frequently the 
Apostle Paul refers to this source of the corruption 
of heathenism. But the life of this good man could 
not any longer have been tainted with this kind of 
impurity. Again, we recollect what the Baptist's 
advice was to the soldiers who came to ask him what 
they should do. " They were not to accuse any 
falsely, and they were to be content with their wages." 
This implies how much they had it in their power to 
oppress the subject population, and how frequently 



19* 



222 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

they availed themselves of their opportunities of this 
kind. But this man did not extort and oppress. 

Great then were his negative merits as well as his 
positive virtues. We naturally ask if it is possible to 
trace them up to any adequate cause ? Yes, the cause 
was what Christ particularizes and speaks so highly 
of: He had not found so great faith ; no, not in Israel. 
It is so among ourselves. A man's character, — and 
if his character, then of course his conduct, — is the 
result of what he believes. It is not only, as it was 
in his case, and as it will be in the case of every one 
of us, '^as thou hast believed, so be it done unto 
thee," but also, as thou hast believed, so wilt thou 
do. 

This faith is needed by all, even the most learned; 
and is possible to all, even the most unlearned. 
Those most learned need it because it does not con- 
sist in learning, but in a sense of our relation to God. 
And because it does not consist in learning, but in 
what God has placed within the reach of every one 
He has made accountable for his conduct, it is attain- 
able by the unlearned. 

Christ's comparison of the faith of the Centurion 
with that of the chosen and highly-favored people, 
and the way in which He marked his approval by 
granting what the man asked for, convey to us the 
lesson that is it not our gifts and opportunities that 
will ultimately be of advantage to us; our having 



THE CENTURION OF CAPERNAUM. 223 

possessed them may even increase our condemnation ; 
what will benefit and save us is the use we shall have 
made of them. On this subject two questions must 
be asked. First, What is the talent the Lord of all 
has entrusted to me? and then, Am I using it so as 
to promote His glory, to benefit others, and to im- 
prove myself? 

I have one more thought to set before you. Com- 
pare this Centurion in his life, and in the end of his 
life, with the other Centurions at that time in the 
Roman army. "We can imagine what they were. 
The great majority, of course, were as the great 
majority always have been. They gave themselves 
little trouble about themselves. As they had been 
brought up, so they lived, and so they died. Some, 
however, made use of their opportunities to enrich 
themselves dishonestly and cruelly, at the cost of the 
provincials. Some by attention to their professional 
duties rose to high military appointments. Some may 
have returned to Rome, and by endeavoring to serve 
the state at home became great in civil capacities. 
This man loved those among whom he resided, and 
was loved by them in return. He was liberal. He 
was intelligently religious. He was considerate and 
kind to his poor slave. He thought humbly of him- 
self. He had faith in God. He believed in Jesus 
Christ. I do not say that the lines which were 
adopted by his brother-Centurions were without any 



224 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

reward in this world ; but I affirm that the happiness 
conferred on him by the line he adopted was well 
worth having. There is One who has told us that it 
will be rewarded in this world an hundredfold, and 
will lead to life everlasting in the world to come. 
Each must consider, and choose for himself, what 
he thinks best. May God help us in making our 
choice. 



Ohservations on tlie foregoing Sermon. 

I began this sermon with the mention of the four 
Centurions, because what we have to say of them is 
of so much interest that it must at once engage the 
attention of the hearers. 

This mention of them gives an opportunity, which 
is made use of in the second paragraph, for awaken- 
ing in the minds of the congregation a sense of the 
injustice of the common fault of condemning whole 
classes and professions, a fault that is as unchristian 
as it is common. This practice pretends to be the 
result of experience, whereas experience of mankind, 
in those who are able to understand its lessons, is just 
what will most effectually save us from it. In the 
Sacred History we have good Pharisees and good 
Publicans, as well as good Roman soldiers. Jesus 
came from Nazareth. A good opportunity for making 



THE CENTURION OF CAPERNAUM. 225 

people feel the foolishness and wickedness of this 
practice ought not to be lost, although it is not a mat- 
ter that belongs to a sermon on the character of this 
Centurion. But it springs naturally from the joint 
mention of the four Centurions, which was the point 
from which I started. 

The graces which are manifested in this Centurion's 
character ought not merely to be catalogued. To 
bring them out distinctively, and to unite them into a 
portrait of the man, must be the aim of the sermon 
of which he is the subject. Each should be so pre- 
sented as not only to make its nature apparent, but 
also to awaken interest, and to engender in the hearer 
the feeling that it is worth having and seeking. The 
more connectedly they are all presented, the more 
distinctness and life will it give to the Centurion's 
character. 

The comparison of the works of Thomas h. Kempis 
and Jeremy Taylor with the building of a synagogue 
would revive flagging attention; and would induce 
the congregation to make an estimate, and, too, a 
deservedly high one, of the Centurion's gift to the 
people of Capernaum, as a means for promoting piety. 
Without some stimulus or assistance of this kind the 
minds of the hearers would not be disposed to make 
any estimate of its value at all. 

What the Centurion had escaped in abandoning 
heathenism, and what he had gained in coming to 



226 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

God through the Law and through Christ, must be in- 
dicated, for without this we can form no real con- 
ception of the man ; but it must not be dwelt on at 
any length, because the character of the man, and not 
the difference between heathenism and the knowledge 
of God, is the subject of the sermon. 

The exhortation is contained indirectly in the last 
paragraph. This is a case where an indirect way of 
submitting a consideration is more forcible than the 
direct way would have been. The direct way of 
putting the exhortation would have been to say : " You 
see what this man was. You see what he gained. 
Become like him. Secure what he secured." This 
would have been very common-place and feeble. But 
by giving a comparative view of the aims and princi- 
ples, of the modes of life and probable success in life 
of this man and his brother-Centurions, the hearers 
are enabled to see distinctly what is the object of the 
sermon, without being directly told; and they will 
feel that their approval of the man's character, and 
their desire that their last end should be like his, are 
results of their own judgment. 



SERMON VI. 



THE SENSE OF SIN AND THE SENSE OF DUTY LEAD 
TO FAITH. 



Luke iii. 10-14. 



"And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? 
He answereth and saith unto them. He that hath two coats, let 
him impart to him that hath none ; and he that hath meat let him 
do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said 
unto him. Master, what shall we do ? And he said unto them, 
Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the sol- 
diers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do ? 
And he said unto them. Do violence to no man, neither accuse any 
falsely ; and be content with your wages." 

The endeavor to do our duty stands in two rela- 
tions towards faith. In that which is most frequently 
insisted on it springs from faith and is its conse- 
quence. In the other the position of the two is just 
reversed, and the endeavor to do our duty appears as 
the cause of faith. This is the relation between them 
supposed in the Scripture of which my text forms a 
part, and which I now propose to bring before you. 

227 



228 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

In order tliat tliis may be seen, we must recall the 
circumstances under whicli the questions contained in 
our text were asked and answered. Jesus had not 
yet entered on His ministry. John, His appointed 
forerunner, was preparing the minds of the people for 
believing on Him. The burden of his preaching was, 
"Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Mark then how 
he endeavors to prepare them for believing on Christ, 
when Christ should Himself come forward and pro- 
claim His divine mission. He does it by awakening 
within them the sense of sin and the sense of duty. 
His preaching is described in one word when we are 
told that he called upon them "to repent." Cease to 
do evil, learn to do well ; otherwise you will be incapa- 
ble of believing on the Great and Holy One who is 
shortly about to appear before you. 

What followed is interesting as well as instructive. 
It was what is contained in our text. His appeals to 
the sense of duty and the sense of sin had come home 
to the conscience of his hearers. It was not the 
camel's-hair garments and the leathern girdle he wore, 
nor the locusts and wild honey he ate, nor his dwell- 
ing in the wilderness that moved them. These things 
were in the eyes of John's hearers just what the 
clerical dress is amongst ourselves. They merely in- 
dicated that he had undertaken the office of a teacher 
of religion. Eastern ideas have always required in 
such persons some such austerities. What moved 



THE SENSE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 229 

them was not what met the eye, but what had through 
then- ears passed to their hearts and consciences. 
God has made every man more or less capable of being 
wrought up to a desire for what is pure and holy, and 
to a dislike of what is sinful. And John having ex- 
cited these feelings among his audience, just in the 
manner in which they might be excited amongst our- 
selves, they severally inquire of him, " What they shall 
do." His object in exciting these feelings, and in 
the replies he made to their questions, was to bring 
them to Christ. This we must bear in mind while we 
review the scene. 

First the general multitude ask him, " What shall 
we do?" Mark, he could not say as Paul said to the 
jailer at Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved;" for the Lord Jesus Christ 
had not yet manifested Himself to the world. John 
was at that very moment preparing them for receiving 
Him. With this then in view, what is the advice he 
gives them ? He singles out the one commandment 
which is of universal application, and tells them to be 
considerate and helpful to one another. And to make 
his meaning as palpable as possible, and to prevent its 
being lost in vague generalities, he puts his reply in 
the form of two instances: "Let him," he says, "who 
has two coats, impart to him who has none; and let 
him who has meat, do likewise." To the mixed mul- 
titude then he recommends, as a preparation for belief 
20 



230 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

in Christ, the most general of all duties. And as this 
duty does not rest merely on the fact that it is en- 
joined by religion, but is enjoined by religion because 
a foundation for it had all along been laid in the higher 
.and better sentiments of our nature, his recommenda- 
tion would find an echo in the hearts of all those his 
preaching had already awakened in some degree to a 
sense of sin and a sense of duty. If he could induce 
them to act on these feelings by putting in practice 
his recommendation, he knew that he would thus be 
leading them to Christ. 

And when the farmers of the taxes saw that he 
was ready to give advice to those who sought it they 
also asked him, "And what shall we do?" Again 
see, bearing in mind what he was aiming at, how he 
endeavors to attain his aim. How apposite, too, and 
how full of good sense, is his advice. There is nothing 
vague, sentimental, or fanatical about it. JS^ow he 
has to deal with a particular class ; and he bids them 
guard against that particular sin, for the commission 
of which their particular calling presented especial 
opportunities and temptations. He says, "Exact no 
more than that which is appointed you." It was fre- 
quently in their power to practise these unjust exac- 
tions. Things of this kind were not looked into very 
closely ; so long as the Government received the rent 
at which they had let out the taxes, and so long as 
there were no public disturbances, all was right. In 



TnE SENSE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 231 

collecting these taxes there were seen behind the farm- 
ers the armed force and the tribunals of the Romans. 
This gave these men great facilities for exacting more 
than was appointed. The victims of their cruel and 
dishonest impositions would be indisposed and afraid 
to go into the courts of their foreign oppressors, 
which thej could hardly hope would be courts of jus- 
tice to them in such cases. — We know that it was the 
general practice of the farmers of the taxes in Judaea 
to sin in this way. Having awakened then in these 
persons the sense of sin and the sense of duty, he 
dexterously turns these feelings upon the point where 
in their case reform was most needed, and with respect 
to which their requickening consciences would be most 
sensitive, trusting that, if he could induce them to 
undertake what he recommended, he would in that 
way bring them to Christ. 

Let us go on with this instructive scene. When he 
had answered the publicans, the soldiers came forward 
with a similar request. Again in framing his reply 
he had in view the same object as before, that of 
bringing the inquirers to Christ ; and he takes the same 
ground, that of the temptations which most beset 
them. "My advice," he says, "to you soldiers is, that 
you do violence to no man, neither accuse any 
falsely; and that you be content with your wages." 
This would not be suitable advice to the soldiers of 
our own army ; but it was the most appropriate that 



232 EXTEMPORARY PREACIIINa. 

could have been given to the soldiers who were then 
standing before John, and whose consciences had just 
been touched by his exhortations. They were pro- 
bably heathen soldiers in a conquered country, and so 
were not likely to be very strictly amenable to law. 
It would frequently happen that they would -plunder, 
and practise various kinds of oppression towards the 
subject population, which they hated and despised, 
especially by threats of false accusations of hostility 
to the Government, and of the breach of various reg- 
ulations that had been imposed on them by their con- 
querors. "You have become conscious," he says, 
" of having committed these particulars kinds of 
wickedness. Endeavor from this moment to avoid 
them." i 

Such then was the Baptist's method of preparing 
in these people's hearts the way of the Lord. It 
consisted in persuading them to give up their common 
besetting sins, and to undertake their common every- 
day duties. 

And now to bring this home to ourselves. Pos- 
sibly there may be some here present who have 
scarcely any more distinct faith in Jesus Christ than 
John's hearers had. Hovf shall I, Christ's Minister 
among them, endeavor to put them upon a way by 
which they may attain to this faith? This, as a Min- 
ister of God's Word, must be my great aim, my par- 
amount object. Some might say, "Recommend 



THE SENSE OE SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 233 

prayer." But I know that men cannot pray who 
have not faith. Others might say, " Speak of the 
wrath of God against sin, and of the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." But, again, what is needed is 
to bring men to believe in these things. I am reduced 
then to that which the Scripture before us suggests — 
the effort to awaken men to a sense of duty, and a de- 
sire to perform it, and to a consciousness of their be- 
setting sins, such as may give rise to the desire to es- 
cape from them. 

You have, then, some belief in a connection between 
your present life and a life to come. To some extent 
you believe that the purpose of your existence is 
moral and spiritual, and not merely material. You 
have some apprehension of your having a Great Un- 
seen Master, whose eye is ever upon you, and who is 
requiring of you certain dispositions and a certain 
mode of life. You do not feel these thoughts now for 
the first time stirring within you ; you know that you 
are concerned in the matters to which they refer. 
But let us go more into particulars. You are a pa- 
rent or a child, a husband or a wife, a master or a 
servant, a neighbor, or, to take the instances of the 
text, one of the multitude, a man among men, or a 
soldier, or a public functionary of some kind or other. 
Consider what belongs to and what grows out of your 
position; its calls, its opportunities, its temptations. 
You do not think that your position has no duties; 

20* 



234 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

you do not think that it is a matter of indifference to 
your conscience how those duties are performed, or 
whether they are performed or not. Now imagine 
yourself endeavoring earnestly to do your duty as a 
parent, or master, or servant, or merely as a man 
among men,, and cannot you see that this endeavor, 
as the herald of the Saviour saw, will lead you on to 
faith in that Saviour ? Without Christian faith you 
feel and acknowledge that you have duties. The only 
logical inference is that you should endeavor to prac- 
tise those duties. That attempt will probably issue in 
Christian faith. 

See why it is so. It is an attempt which, as soon 
as a man begins to make it, he finds beset with diffi- 
culties. One want, which the hundredth, perhaps, as 
well as the ninety and nine will immediately feel, will 
be that of distinct and infallible authority for the kind 
of life he is entering on ; and he will feel that it must 
be some authority external to himself. This is a very 
material point. There is a craving for certainty 
which is not to be found in one's self. Whence then 
is it to be obtained? The jnore a man looks into him- 
self, the less confidence will he have in himself; the 
more distinctly will he perceive that he is misled by 
what he desires, by self-love, by prejudices, by his 
natural biasses, and also by his ignorance. The edu- 
cated classes may think that they are more or less 
raised above these influences, these disturbing causes, 



THE SENSE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 235 

or, rather, each may think so of himself; but does he 
think so of his friends and neighbors, as well in- 
structed as himself? As respects, however, these 
subjects, who are we to consider as the educated 
classes ? Even in those parts of the world which are 
intellectually the most advanced, they form a very 
small proportion of the whole. And if we extend 
our view to mankind generally, they become so small 
a proportion that they need hardly be taken into ac- 
count. What we want all the while is something by 
which the great mass of mankind may be guided. 
Take any one from the passing crowd : this is what he 
needs. Look at the human race : this is what it 
needs. The impulses of the sense of duty, whether 
awakened from without or by a conscious effort, re- 
quire sanction, and support, and guidance. These 
must be external. There must be something that 
speaks as it were with the voice of law — something 
authoritative. 

Who then is there that can speak to us with this 
necessary authority, and with a voice that will be to 
us as the voice of law? Not the Scribes and Phari- 
sees — they who sit in Moses' seat; not you, nor I, nor 
any other man. What any man may say on these 
subjects (subjects which do not admit of demonstra- 
tion) must be more or less colored by the peculiarities 
of the individual, of the age in which he lives, and of 
the people to whom he belongs. Men can only see 



236 EXTEMPORAEY PREACHINa. 

these things mth imperfect vision through distorting 
media. The conclusion any individual may come to on 
these subjects is only what he thinks ; it is his opinion, 
and must partake more or less of the nature of a con- 
jecture or a guess. All the while what is wanted is 
certainty; for what is wanted is a rule that a man 
may live and die by. The philosophies of the ancients 
failed among other reasons from this, that they were 
not possessed of the requisite authority. One was ar- 
rayed against another; and all wore the aspect of 
guesses; whereas what was wanted was certainty. 
Whence then, and how, shall we obtain it? In this 
matter little or nothing can be done without it. The 
history of the human race shows that it can be ob- 
tained only from one source, that is, from Him who 
alone can speak with authority, to Whom alone in 
this matter authority and certainty belong, God Him- 
self, the author of the moral law. It was this feeling 
that brought Christendom, and will naturally bring 
every one of us who shall have become desirous of dis- 
charging his duty, to the Word of God, that is, to the 
Incarnate Word — the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God 
sent to be in this particular the Light of the world, to 
give light to every man who desires light. He alone 
speaks not as men speak, but with authority and cer- 
tainty. 

As soon as this want is felt, we see that recourse 
is had to the Word of God, and to those who have 



THE SENSE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 237 

made the Word of God their study. This is an ever- 
acting motive which generation after generation fills 
the house of God ; which from the Apostles ' days to 
our own has brought together so many Christian con- 
gregations — the desire to be told, albeit through a 
human channel, what God would have them to d-o. 
Nothing of the kind would ever have taken place if 
preachers spoke with no other authority than their 
own. 

And if we pass from the sense of duty to that with 
which it is very closely connected, the sense of the re- 
lation that exists between man and the author of the 
moral law, we find precisely the same want felt, that 
of distinct and certain knowledge, derived from an 
authoritative source. Many put themselves forward 
as teachers in these times, as many have done in all 
times. But of all these could we accept one, Revela- 
tion entirely set aside, as capable of being the instruc- 
tor of his brethren on this subject? Can the people 
of this country be each to himself a light upon this 
subject, or can the people of any country? It is 
clear, that as soon as the religious sentiment is 
awakened it needs guidance and enlightenment, that is, 
it needs a revelation; and no other revelation has been 
given but that through Jesus Christ. This sentiment, 
therefore, just as the sense of duty does, leads to faith 
in Him. If it does not lead to Ilim, then there is an 



238 EXTEMPOEARY PREACHING. 

instinct without an object, or without the means of 
attaining to its object. 

But not only did we find the Baptist setting before 
his hearers what they ought to do, but also calling 
them to repentance. That is to say, as I have been 
putting it throughout this discourse, not only en- 
deavoring to awaken within them the sense of duty, 
but also the sense of sin. The two are so closely 
connected that they may almost be regarded as two 
aspects of the same feeling. Regarding them how- 
ever for this occasion separately, let us see how the 
latter also would lead to the object he had in view. 
A sense of our having done wrong, of our having 
wronged our Maker, wronged the nature He gave us 
akin to His own, fallen short of the opportunities He 
has presented to us, and wronged our fellow-men, can 
have but one issue, and that is the desire for atone- 
ment. If the uneasiness felt does not lead to this, it 
is purposeless. This seeking for atonement in a man 
who has become conscious of having done wrong is as 
natural as the effort to obtain food when one is hun- 
gry. All the penances and mortifications the natural 
man imposes on himself, all the altars that have been 
raised, and all the sacrifices that have been offered on 
every part of the earth's surface, are unanswerable 
witnesses to this fact. Man has felt universally the 
necessity of atonement. Man believes in God, and in 
a day of account. It cannot therefore be, he feels 



THE SENSE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 239 

that it cannot be, a matter without issue that he has 
been a wrong-doer. How were the sins of that mul- 
titude that stood before John to be atoned for? He 
knew but of one way, the deliverance to be effected 
by Him to whom he pointed when he said, "Behold 
the Lamb of Grod which taketh away the sin of the 
world." And as there is no other name given under 
heaven whereby this may be effected, the sense of sin, 
accompanied, as it must be, by the craving for atone- 
ment and reconciliation, must lead to faith in Christ. 
Every one, then, can and must judge for himself 
whether the ground I have been taking to-day is 
strong or weak. Each is, as far as he himself is con- 
cerned, the only possible judge of the matter. I 
appeal to what I suppose is in your hearts and minds, 
to what you must know about yourselves. But I have 
no fear that you will attempt to refute me from your 
own experience, for I have been speaking of the com- 
mon principles and the common necessities of every 
man's nature. All languages show that men have in 
all times, and in all places, had an instinctive sense 
of duty. It matters nothing whether it results from 
the exercise of a congenital faculty, or from necessary 
development, as the flower and the fruit do from the 
seed. Certain actions and certain dispositions, vary- 
ing from the necessity of circumstances within certain 
limits, but still always, however, varying, presenting 
the same characteristics, have always been approved 



240 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

of, well spoken of and regarded as becoming. To 
these men have considered themselves as under obliga- 
tion. The sense, too, of man's standing in certain re- 
lations to God has been equally universal. The same 
is true of the sense of sin. Men are every where ac- 
quainted with its demerits, and have a more or less 
definite desire to be rid of what they anticipate as its 
consequences. Upon these principles of our common 
nature I take my stand. If you are conscious within 
yourselves of these feelings, there is but one legitimate 
conclusion to which you can come, that is, thankful 
and trustful faith in the Gospel of our Lord and Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ. It alone can give light accom- 
panied with authority where we need them. It alone 
can supply those wants which conscience forces on our 
attention. Not only then is it the unspeakable gift of 
God, and emphatically the good tidings, but it is the 
necessary complement of our nature and of the con- 
ditions of our earthly existence. It is no by-thought 
or after-thought breaking in unexpectedly in the mid- 
dle course of this present dispensation, but it is the 
completion and the crowning fact of the one great 
harmonious plan. Without it the moral and spiritual 
creation would be confusion, darkness, and despair. 
With it we obtain all that our spiritual and moral, and 
much that our intellectual nature requires — a sense 
of certainty, a sense of peace and reconciliation, and 
a sense that we are progressing towards a higher, and 
as we are allowed to hope, even a perfect state. 



THE SENSE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 241 



Ohsewations on the foregoing Sermon, 

We insist frequently upon the statement that the 
virtues are all of them fruits of faith. It therefore 
becomes necessary for the Minister who is desirous of 
fully instructing his hearers in the Word, to call their 
attention to the opposite view of the relation in which 
the two may be standing to each other ; the relation 
in which that which is usually regarded as the cause 
appears as the effect, and the effect as the cause. 
And this will have the advantage of showing a scrip- 
tural, and I believe the readiest and most certain, 
because the natural method of producing faith in 
men's minds. To point out this method, and, while 
pointing it out, to use it for its proper purpose, as far 
as that can be done, is the object of the sermon. 

It is surprising that the ideas of so many Christians 
as to what the religion of Christ requires of them 
should be so different from what we find Christ Him- 
self telling us in His announcements of His kingdom 
and Gospel. He makes it consist in right conduct 
resulting from right dispositions. But if we listen 
now to those who put themselves most prominently 
before us as teachers of religion, and religious guides, 
we shall hear most of them affirming above all things 

21 



242 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

the necessity of some detached doctrine, or the per- 
version of some doctrine, or some only partially true 
opinion. Such a text then as the one that has been 
before us is useful as bringing us back to a scriptural, 
and a plain and intelligible conception of Christianity. 
Here is the forerunner of Christ, -whose work it was to 
prepare men for Christ, telling them what they must 
do ; and what he tells them is that they must practise 
the several duties of their respective stations and cir- 
cumstances. 

There are some who in reading this sermon would 
remark that it is unmanly, and that it shows a dis- 
trust in the power of Christ, not to speak at once and 
in the first instance of Christ. It may not be so. He 
who on finding the surface of the ground unfit for sup- 
porting the structure he is desirous of erecting, goes 
down deeper for a foundation, is not to be accounted 
an unwise builder. At all events, such objectors are 
at issue- with the Baptist in his method of bringing 
men to Christ. 

I have just used, not undesignedly, the expression 
of going deeper for a foundation, because in these 
matters there is something anterior to, and more an- 
cient than the Gospel,- which is not yet two thousand 
years old; something more universal, for the Gospel 
has not yet spread over the world ; something, in short, 
upon which the Gospel is founded, and to which it ap- 
peals — the sense of sin and the sense of duty, and the 



THE SE2^SE OF SIN AND DUTY LEADS TO FAITH. 243 

Bense of our standing in certain relations to God. 
"We may also regard these sentiments as the citadel. 
If the citadel be secured, the city may be lost, and 
again recovered. But if the citadel itself be lost, 
nothing more can be done. That which it was de- 
signed to protect has fallen with it, and all is lost. 



STUDIES FOR SERMONS. 



I WILL now give six short studies for sermons. I 
take them from a selection of as many hundreds. To 
make them intelligible to others, I am obliged to ex- 
pand them very much beyond the length at which they 
were set down originally, when intended only for my 
own eye. I find studies of this kind of great use, 
because they enable one to take in at a glance all the 
ground that is to be passed over in preaching, and to 
judge in a few seconds of the quality and arrange- 
ment of one's materials. 

It would be of advantage to very many also of those 
who read written discourses, if they were to make 
short abstracts of this kind of every sermon they 
write. It would oblige them to ascertain what is the 
real meaning of every paragraph ; and to see what 
is the nature of its connection with what precedes and 
with what follows it. It would help them very much 
in forming a correct judgment ; at all events it would 
necessitate their forming some kind of judgment of 
the sermon they were about to preach, both as a whole, 
and of each part of it. 
244 



STUDY I. 



GOD HAS impoiita:n^t work foe, the least amoxg us. 



Deuteronomy vii. 6, 7. ■ 

** The Lord thy Grod hath chosen thee to be a special people 
unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. 
The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because 
ye were more in number than any people ; for ye "were the fewest 
of all people." 

I. — 1. The gifts God bestows upon us, and the 
work He calls us to do, are not in proportion to our 
seeming importance in the world. Consider the his- 
tory before us. He passes over the Egyptians, and 
chooses their wretched bondmen. 

2. This may be further illustrated by the call of 
Abraham. 

3. This is in accordance with what God does in the 
kingdoms of nature. The huge elephant is of very 
little use in the world, while the smallest animalcules 
have built up large districts of existing continents, 
and are building up what will be large districts of 

21* 245 



246 EXTEMPORARY PREACHIXa. 

future ones. The little bee gives men honey and 
light. Another insignificant insect contributes largely 
to the clothing of the human race. And so it is in 
the vegetable kingdom. The humble grass we tread 
on unnoticed has a more important place in the 
economy of nature than the stateliest trees of the 
forest. 

II. — 1. Just so, God has great work for little 
people to do. Consider what the world owes to the 
people described in the text as "the fewest of all 
people." Without them what would the religion of 
the leading races of mankind now be? 

(2. It is instructive to observe, by the way, that 
though they did not comprehend their high calling, 
still God's purpose was worked out through them.) 

III. — 1. The moral of these observations is for each 
of us, that he cannot be so small but that God has 
some great work for him to do. 

2. The humblest in circumstances should recollect, 
that it was not by the great, the powerful, the noble, 
that the Gospel was first received and exhibited to the 
world. The same glorious part is open to the 
humblest in all ages. It is so at this day. 

3. God has something for the poor beggar to do, 
as a poor beggar, which he could not do were he a 
prince. 

4. He who came in the form of a servant, not 
having where to lay His head, has shown by His 



GOD HAS IMPORTANT WORK FOR THE LEAST. 247 

example, that a holy spirit will under the lowliest cir- 
cumstances make its possessor a blessing to his fellow- 
men, and enable him to live to the glory of God. 

TV. Nothing can so lift us above worldly cares 
and circumstances as the knowledge that, whatever 
our position at present, still that we have a part to 
act in the great plan, not unimportant, for assigned 
us by God Himself. We, even if we be the lowliest 
of all may do the work and live the life of God as 
thoroughly, may be as much His instruments, and 
represent Him as truly to our brethren, as the most 
exalted of all. 



STUDY II, 



SOME LIMITATIONS TO SELP-WILL. 



Deuteronomy xii. 8. 

" Ye sliall not do after all the things that we do here this day, 
every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes." 

I. — Self-will is a natural impulse in all. It is 
not desirable, nor would it be possible that it should 
be carried out. 

II. — 1. Moses, in giving the Law which was to 
transform a multitude into a nation, announces the 
limitation it would set to their self-will. Without 
this limitation national existence would be impossible. 

2. Look at the summary of the Law, the Decalogue, 
and see how its injunctions and prohibitions check and 
guide us at every step. 

3. This is why we are told in the New Testament 
to be subject to magistrates ; and that they are or- 
dained of God. 

4. The whole framework of human societies con- 
sists of so many checks on self-will. The same may 

248 



SOME LIMITATIONS TO SELF-WILL. 249 

be said of our daily and hourly intercourse "with each 
other. 

5. Take what we are most familiar "with, our own 
homes, and you will see that home becomes impossible 
if self-will is to be the rule of its member's conduct. 

III. — But law is very imperfect. Religion, which 
substitutes the love of others for the love of self, is 
the only complete and ever-acting check. It trans- 
forms our worst fault into our highest grace. 

lY. — The means by which we may be brought to 
this new birth, this regenerate state, are — (1) a know- 
ledge of God; (2) thoughtful and serious habits of 
mind; (3) experience of the fact that self-will is not 
conducive to happiness ; (4) early training ; (5) an ac- 
quaintance with the character and with the work of 
Christ; (6) communion with God, i. e., prayer. 

Y. — The result will be, that a spirit — the opposite 
of self-will, originally external to ourselves, and no 
part of what we were by nature — God's Spirit will 
come and dwell with us, and make us one with God 
and one with Christ. 



STUDY III. 



"WE TEMPT GOD BY OUR DESIRES. 



Psalm cvi. 14, 15. 

" They tempted God in the desert. And He gave them their 
desire; and sent leanness withal into their souls." 

I. — 1. Then our having obtained our desires is no 
proof either that it "was right to have entertained such 
desires, or that now they are fulfilled there "will result 
to us from them any kind of blessing. 

2. The text is a comment on the history recorded 
in the eleventh chapter of Numbers. While God, we 
are told, was bringing up the Israelites from the bon- 
dage of Egypt to the land He had promised them, He 
fed them in the desert with manna from heaven. This 
was to teach them their dependence on Him, and that 
they might trust Him. They desire meat instead. 
This, under ordinary circumstances, would have been 
a matter of indifference. Under the . particular cir- 
cumstances of the case it was tempting God. It was 
250 



WE TEMPT GOD BY OUR DESIRES. 251 

calling upon Him to do in one way what He had for 
sufficient reasons decided would best be done in a dif- 
ferent way. Their desire, however, is complied with ; 
but its fulfilment is made the instrument of their pun- 
ishment. 

II. — 1. It is then a sin to tempt God ; and we 
tempt Him when we would do in one way what He 
has ordained should be done in another way. Jesus 
Christ would have tempted God if He had thrown 
Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, be- 
cause reason (which God has given us for this among 
other purposes) teaches that those who act in this 
way, God does not protect. 

2. God has ordained that man shall eat bread by 
the sweat of his brow. Those who make haste to get 
rich, and there are many such in these days, tempt 
God. 

3. God has ordained that parents should train up 
their children by encouraging them in doing right, 
and by restraining them when they do wrong. Those 
who neglect these things tempt God. 

4. God has ordained that we should hear the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Those who in this matter are in their 
own conceit wiser than God, are tempting God. 

III.— 1. But the text speaks of our desires as the 
means wherewith we may tempt God. Our desires 
may be in themselves all that is most excellent, as was 
the desire of Judas to be the qgrnpanipn of Jesus. 



252 EXTEMPORARY PREACHINa. 

But desires tlie most excellent may, as in his case, be 
cherished for purposes the most vile. 

2. Or our desires may be in themselves most 
wicked; as when the Israelites wished to worship 
idols or to be told smooth false things. So it may be 
with us when we desire opportunities for lust, revenge, 
deceit, &c. 

8. Or they may be indifferent, as when we desire 
wealth; which maybe desired and used either for 
good and godly purposes, or for bad and godless 
ones. 

IV. — God, by the reason, the conscience, the powers 
of observation, the experience of life He has given 
us, and by the instruction and the Spirit He conveys 
to us through His Word, enables us to regulate our 
desires wisely. But at the same time, if we will have 
it so. He allows us opportunities for doing wrong, for 
wreaking our vengeance, for living unchastely, for de- 
ceiving, for self-indulgence, and for godlessness. How 
appalling is this thought! Let each then consider 
what is the nature of his desires, and why he wishes 
for such or such things. Let us look into our hearts. 
Self-knowledge is the most difficult, as it is the most 
useful of all knowledge. We must try to see our- 
selves as others see us, or rather as God sees us. 



STUDY IV. 



WHAT IS TRUTH? 

John xviii. 38. 
«'Wliat is truth?" 

I. — 1. Pilate asked this question jeering! j, and 
did not wait for an answer. He was an educated 
Roman, and a man of the world. He must have had 
some acquaintance with the different schools of Greek 
philosophy. Probably he ridiculed them all for their 
disagreement as to what was the truth; and because 
each propounded as a rule of life what had no author- 
ity beyond that which resulted from its being the 
guess of the philosopher who had founded the 
school. 

2. Pilate would perhaps have been a happier and a 
better man had he possessed the spirit of any one of 
the philosophers whose efforts to attain the truth he 
derided. But under the circumstances he was not to 
be blamed. And that he, an educated Roman, high in 
the service of the State, was not to be blamed for 
22 253 



254 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

speaking derisively of the truth, shows the necessity 
there was for the religion Christ came to establish. 

II. — 1. If Pilate could revisit this earth, how sur- 
prised would he be at the changes which have taken 
place in the world since he spoke the words before us ! 
But perhaps neither the desolation of Judaea, nor the 
disappearance of the world-wide empire among the ad- 
ministrators of which he had held so high a place, 
would surprise him so much as that the Galilean pea- 
sant whose words he had derided had established a 
moral and spiritual empire in the world far wider than 
that of Imperial Rome, and was worshipped as God. 

2. And how had this been effected ? By the very 
truth he thought it so ridiculous that the Galilean 
peasant should make any pretensions of possessing. 

III. — 1. And in attaining to this dominion that 
truth was unaided by any kind of worldly power or 
inducement. The influence and authority of Govern- 
ment were opposed to it. The sword was drawn, not 
for it, but against it. And it had, besides, to combat 
both the wisdom and the vices of mankind. It tri- 
umphed entirely by its own intrinsic power, because 
it was the truth. It commended itself to the hearts 
and to the understandings of all men, because it was 
the truth. 

2. Nations and races of men very unlike in many 
things have alike received this truth. 



WHAT IS TRUTH? 255 

3. Nor have any diversities of condition or circum- 
stances hindered men from embracing it. 

ly. — 1. And what is the substance of this truth ? 
It consists, in its simplest expression, of two propo- 
sitions. The first is what mankind had every where 
dimly apprehended, — that man is a sinner in the sight 
of God ; and the second is what mankind had every 
where been seeking for, — that a way for reconciliation 
with God is now opened. 

2. Texts on the latter point, 1 Timothy i. 15. John 
iii. 15. Matthew xi. 28. 

3. This is what every thoughtful soul would regard 
as the gladdest of tidings, and what every dying soul 
sees is the main substance of the truth. 

4. No philosophy can teach us any thing higher, 
and yet the most unlearned man can distinctly appre- 
hend it. 

V. — This truth has power to raise the beggar from 
the dunghill and to give him a place among princes, 
and to which many princes shall not attain. It makes 
those who receive it like Christ, and qualifies them for 
sitting with Him in heavenly places. It gives a man 
dominion over himself. It gives him the happiness 
of the world that now is, and of that which is to come. 
It harmonizes things temporal with things eternal. 
It reconciles man to God, and God to man. 



STUDY V. 



THE OFFENDER IN ONE POINT. 



James ii. 10. 



" Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one 
point, is guilty of all." 

I. — 1. The seeming hardness of this saying arises 
in a great measure from our translation. The word 
"point" suggests to us some small matter, but this 
word is not in the original. The literal translation 
would be "offend in one law;" i. e., the man who 
should keep nine of the commandments but break the 
tenth. This is a very different statement. 

2. "Guilty of all" means that he has defied the 
authority upon which all the ten equally rest. So if 
he were tempted to break any other one, he would not 
be held back from doing it by the consideration that 
he would be breaking God's law. 

II. — Another reason why we are offended at it is, 
that, as no one is without sin, in admitting it we con- 
demn ourselves. 
256 



THE OFFENDER IN ONE POINT. 257 

III. — 1. We must endeavor to bring ourselves to 
acknowledge its force. Consider some of the figures 
used to express the relation in which we stand to God. 
We are called ''the children of God." Can that 
child be regarded as affectionate, obedient, or dutiful 
towards his earthly father, who sets some one of his 
commandments at defiance? 

2. We are "the servants of God." Suppose we 
had contracted to serve an earthly master, should not 
we break the contract and forfeit the stipulated com- 
pensation if we declined to do the whole of the work 
required of us ? 

3. We are "subjects of God's kingdom upon earth." 
It is no defence for the subject of aji earthly kingdom, 
when charged with breaking any one of its laws, to 
allege that he has kept any number of its other laws. 
The forger cannot defend himself by saying, I am not 
a murderer or an adulterer. 

4. This is the principle in accordance with which 
we judge others. We must so judge ourselves in 
respect of God's law. 

IV. — 1. This principle is not now announced here 
by St. James for the first time. It is as old as the 
Law itself, as quoted by St. Paul, "Cursed is every 
one that continueth not in all things which are written 
in the book of the law to do them."^ 

• Gal. iii. 10. 

22* 



258 EXTEMPORARY PREACHING. 

2. The Great Master also tells us, " Whosoever 
shall break one of these least commandments, and 
shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the king- 
dom of heaven."' 

V. — 1. The Herod who committed incest and be- 
headed John the Baptist is an instance of the insuffi- 
ciency even of going so far as to hear gladly the most 
stirring preaching of the Word, and of doing much in 
conformity to it. 

2. Judas supplies a case still more in point. It 
was the breach of the tenth commandment which 
literally made him guilty of others in so aggravated 
a form, that we see there was nothing to hold him 
back from the breach of any one, or of every one of 
them. 

yi. — 1. Another way of putting it. What is 
meant is the persistent breach of some commandment, 
any kind of sin practised habitually. 

2. It is not said of those who, as Peter did, under 
some extraordinary circumstances bend before the 
storm ; they soon recover their erect position. 

3. Nor of those who have truly repented them of 
their former sins. It is the glad tidings of the Gos- 
pel, that they are freed from them, and are no longer 
under condemnation. 

yil. — We must endeavor to picture to ourselves 

2 Matt. V. 19. 



THE OFFENDER IN ONE POINT. 259 

the mind, the character, the work of Christ. We 
must endeavor in every way we can to acquaint our- 
selves with God. So may we hope to be redeemed 
from every thing that is degrading, that is hateful, 
that is sinful. 



STUDY YI. 



GOD IS EEVEALED TO US BY OTJK HEAETS. 



1 John iv. 8. 
" He that loveth not, knoweth not God." 

I. — The highest place is assigned in Holy Scripture 
to love, as a principle of conduct. It is the fulfilment 
of the whole Law. This seems to embrace every 
thing. 

II. — 1. This statement, however, of the Apostle 
John exalts love still higher. Love it is, he says, that 
reveals to us God. 

2. This is the highest, and most precious, and most 
influential of all knowledge. No other knowledge so 
changes and so regenerates. Nothing so distinguishes 
man from the brute, or so lifts a man in thought and 
feeling above those in other respects his fellows. 

III. — It is not, then, so much by reason that God 
is apprehended as by the heart. And this is a fact 
which our own experience confirms. Many a culti- 
260 



GOD IS REVEALED TO US BY OUR HEARTS. 261 

vated mind sees not, knows not God ; but He is known 
by those who have loving hearts. 

ly. — This justifies that dispensation of God which 
confines opportunities for mental culture to a few; for 
goodness of heart is placed within the reach of every 
one. 

V. — 1. It explains the coldness of the worldly and 
the recklessness of the sinner. Their hearts are 
hardened and corrupted, and so cannot reveal God to 
them. 

2. The teaching, therefore, of the Ministers of the 
Word should not be denunciatory, but should aim at 
awakening a sense of gratitude and love. 

3. There is much in every heart to which such teach- 
ing can appeal. In no one, probably, does God allow 
this witness to Himself to be completely silenced. He 
created the heart with a yearning for something to lean 
against, something to love. In the relations of home 
and of society, and even in the creatures and objects 
with which He surrounds us, He is ever endeavoring to 
call into exercise our good and loving feelings. But 
in connection with all these objects of love there arises 
a sense of imperfection and of perishableness, of in- 
security and of uncertainty. No earthly friend can 
be worthy of the entire devotion of the heart. 
Nothing earthly can be secured to us but from day to 
day. Are we then to love those whom God has made 
near and dear to us less than we do at present ? Nay, 



262 EXTEMPORAHY PREACHING. 

with these words of the Apostle before us, we will 
strive to love them more ; knowing that this will ever 
be more and more distinctly revealing to us God, the 
one perfect and abiding object of love. " God is love ;" 
and "he that loveth not, knoweth not God." 



THE END. 



CHAS. SCRIBNER & CO.'S 

LIST OF 

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